Children Of The Elder Smurfs
by Nigel Yearning
Summary: The Smurf Village had been destroyed and only the Smurflings are left. As the Dark Presence hunts them down, they keep finding manuscript pages from an unknown author that foretelling future events. Will they survive or will they be consumed darkness?
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: I do not own any characters that were created by someone else**

**Claimer: Go to my profile to view my characters**

_Some are born to light, some are born to endless night._

It wasn't the darkness itself they fear, it was what was hiding in it. The smurfs fought for survival in their world they called home, they fought Gargamel, natural disasters, even monsters. They were victorious in the end, each challenge they encountered they succeed. Each problem they encountered, they solve. Centuries of knowledge ensured the smurfs' survival, but there was so much they could do.

The smurfs now have a new class of their own species, the green smurfs as they were called. Green smurfs are grass green smurfs that wear camouflaged smurf hats and pants, they stand just as tall as their blue counterparts and have distinctive smurf features. Unlike the smurfs, they have heads full of thick hair instead of being bald and their bodies were cylindrical instead of being pear-shaped. Half of all green smurfs are female, they have pear-shaped bodies and looked almost like either Smurfette's old and new self. Some are beautiful, some are ugly, green smurfs don't actually care about beauty unlike most creatures.

The green smurfs act more human than smurf, they live 10 kilometers or 6 miles away from the actual Smurf Village. They live in the Green Smurf Colony, a colony made up of 10 green smurf villages that operate under a single unit. Each village was dedicated to an important task to ensure the colony's survival, what makes it most unusual about green smurfs is that they don't need leadership. No papa smurf leads the green smurfs at all.

However there is a papa smurf, officially that is. His name is Chernov Reznov, he stands 4 apples tall, looks similar to the green smurfs in everyway. The major differences is that Chernov wears a camouflage jacket and is more mature, he resides in the Smurf Village since he did not want to take up the responsibility in leading the colony. A major note to remember is that the first generation of green smurfs and green smurfettes aren't Chernov's children but his half-brothers and half-sisters.

Having to save the smurfs many times in the past, he became an idol to them despite being stubborn and ignorant at times. He managed to maintain peace with the smurfs and became good friends with them, he even managed to start himself a family. He fell in love with an overweight green smurfette named Rachael, she had blond hair and wears a camouflaged smurf hat and a pair of green overalls. The two had children named Cherskey and Nelly, they looked almost like their parents except Nelly has brown hair instead of blond.

Cherskey and Nelly found themselves residing over with the Smurflings, at their tree stump club house, Chernov insisted it since he wanted them to be more independent. The Smurflings got along with the twins, despite their adult behavior.

Everything was ordinary and fine, but that will soon about to change. A terrible evil has woken up, somewhere deep in an isolated area of the forest. It was called the Dark Presence, since it can only come out to play at night. Describing the Dark Presence, its an entity, a malevolent spirit who has the power of darkness. It uses shadows and darkness to take control of creatures and inanimate objects, it had been defeated in ancient times but now its back, and no one was prepared.

Gargamel was foolish enough to wake it up, he used a tome called the "Book of Darkness" a spellbook about the dark arts of witchcraft. He planned to use the Dark Presence to destroy the smurfs, so he cast the spell to bring it back into the world. He didn't actually cast a spell, but used a key to unlock the cage to the Dark Presence's prison. When the Dark Presence stood before him in a ball of oily black shadows of a cloud, Gargamel commanded the Dark Presence to attack the Smurf Village.

The Dark Presence agreed, but with a catch, Gargamel doesn't control the Dark Presence. He doesn't know this yet. At night, the Dark Presence head to the Smurf Village and found Chernov fuming with rage from a vicious prank from his half-siblings. The entity touched him and set him to work, in order for the Dark Presence to do anything at all Chernov must write a horror story about the smurfs. But Chernov turned on the Dark Presence in the end before he managed to write the ending, everything went downhill from there.

He fought back, the only way to harm the Dark Presence was with light. He tries his best to protect the smurfs and eventually tracked down Gargamel who was responsible for releasing the Dark Presence, after Gargamel was dragged into the night Chernov realized he must finished the story in order to end the nightmare. He fought his way past the Dark Presence's forces back to the Smurf Village and written an epilogue to the story, putting the Dark Presence in its place.

Chernov only weakened the Dark Presence, he didn't actually destroy it. So the next night when all seemed calm, the Dark Presence attacked Chernov and split him into two individuals: a rational and a insane version of himself. The rational got away, the Dark Presence only needs the insane one. It possessed the insane Chernov and made him it's puppet, then sent him against Papa Smurf.

Papa Smurf managed to defeat the possessed being and saved the insane part of Chernov, then he went and tracked down the rational before reuniting the two at a high-tech laboratory located deep within a mountain. The smurfs thought they defeated the Dark Presence, but they were wrong. 6 months past after the Dark Presence attack on the Smurf Village, the entity itself was laying low, abiding its time, planning its next move.

The manuscripts it had Chernov wrote had the habit of coming true, the Dark Presence gave Chernov that power. Before the two Chernovs were reunited, the insane Chernov written a lot of manuscripts in a short period of time, eventually writing a new horror story from them. When the rational reunited with the insane, the smurfs failed to find the manuscripts of that story. Chernov's guardian angel, the ghost of a past ancestor, had taken the manuscripts before the smurfs was able to find it.

Now after 6 months of planning, the Dark Presence made its move, just what the story said it would.

**TO BE CONTINUED...**


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: I do not own any characters that were created by someone else**

**Claimer: Go to my profile to view my characters**

It was the dead of twilight, the moon was full with no clouds available to block its light. Crickets were chirping out their mating calls, other creatures were either sleeping or out hunting for their next meal. The Smurf Village itself was quiet, all the smurfs were sleeping peacefully in their beds. For a moment, everything seemed safe, but not for long.

It started off as a low rumble, so low that anyone walking wouldn't even noticed. After a moment past, it quickly got to a point where the earth shook the trees, waking up most creatures. The smurfs stirred in their sleep, woken by the shaking. Most had no idea what exactly happened, others had their eyes wide open as possible from fright. Many of the smurfs didn't thought much of the earthquake, until a loud mournful cry roared over the village, as if the forest had woke up.

Papa Smurf hadn't woken from the earthquake, but when he heard the roar his eyes shot opened. He immediately assumed it was the Dark Presence. Past experience tells him the Dark Presence likes to ambush helpless smurfs in their sleep, he got out of bed and quickly lit a lantern at the center of the room. Once lit, he quickly got dressed before grabbing that lantern and heading out into the night.

He saw many of the smurfs already out and about, wondering what just happened. "What's going on Papa Smurf?" asked a smurf.

"I don't know," he said, "Something unsmurfy is about, everysmurf do a security sweep and look for an intruder."

The smurfs soon got together in small groups, once organized they patrol parts of the village one at a time. By now, most of the smurfs were awake, the only smurfs that weren't awake were the Smurflings. Undisturbed by the noise and earthquake, they continue to sleep peacefully in their beds as the adult smurfs walked around the village, double-checking everything to make sure that there's nothing wrong.

Realizing that they'll might be up for hours, the smurfs got dressed in their everyday clothes. Papa Smurf had them all lit lanterns inside and outside their homes, just in case the Dark Presence was about to attack. After just about 20 minutes, the smurfs found no sign of the Dark Presence, it was just paranoia that was getting a hold of them. "No sign of any foul play Papa Smurf." said Brainy as he held up a lantern over his head.

"Didn't find anything." said Hefty.

"Okay smurfs," said Papa Smurf, "Go back to your houses and go back to sleep, nothing amidst here."

So that's it, just go back to bed as nothing had happened? Most smurfs believed Papa Smurf's word for it, and so head back to their homes. Deep down, Papa Smurf knew there was not much they could do when they're attacked by the Dark Presence. He thinks that Chernov was getting tired on saving the village from such threats, there's going to be a point where he would simply drop to the ground and calling it quits.

Just as Papa Smurf was heading back to his house, Brainy quickly head back to his. He grabbed a backpack and stuffed it with food, a canteen of water, a flashlight Chernov gave him, and a 0.5 mm pistol he managed to commandeer from the Green Smurf Colony. There was a knock on the door, Brainy grabbed another flashlight and turned it on before aiming it at the door, "Come in." said Brainy.

The door opened and Clumsy stepped in, the bright light from the flashlight nearly blinded him. "Geez Brainy," said Clumsy as Brainy lowers the light, "You're trying to blind me or something?"

"No," said the 4-eyed smurf, "Just shut up and gather your things, we're getting out of here."

"Are you serious?" said Clumsy, "I mean, you're going to leave in the middle of the night?"

"The Dark Presence is out there," said Brainy, "I know it, I can feel it."

"This is going over your head Brainy," said Clumsy, "Why not just-"

"Did you even noticed that the crickets weren't chirping?" asked Brainy.

Clumsy thought for a moment, he realized Brainy was right. He didn't hear any crickets at all along the way over to Brainy's house, he began to believe Brainy was doing the right thing. "I'll go get my backpack." said Clumsy.

Right when he said that, they heard a smurf scream at the top of his lungs outside. All the smurfs around the village knew who it was when they heard it, it was Papa Smurf. They all ran to his house and find it was covered in oily black shadows, it was horrifying to watch. The smurfs noticed the shadows began to move as the wind picks up, then everything became more darker than normal as the shadows blocked out the moonlight, then they heard the Dark Presence roared.

All around them, inanimate objects came to life. Unnatural shadows possessed them with vengeance, the smurfs weren't ready for an assault, so they ran. The smurfs screamed as loud as they can, crying for help that would never come. One by one, the darkness snatched them up and ate them whole. Brainy and Clumsy managed to slip away unnoticed out of the village, they saw the shades coming before anyone else. The Dark Presence will have one hell of a time tracking them down, but it will worry about that later.

Slowly but surely, the screams die down, until the only noise being made was the strength of the Dark Presence's hold on the village. When it lifts it's shadows, the Smurf Village showed no signs of damage whatsoever, as if nothing even happened. What's even more striking was that most of the smurfs in the village were gone, the Dark Presence gobbled most of them up. However, it did leave a few survivors...

**TO BE CONTINUED...**


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer: I do not own any characters that were created by someone else**

**Claimer: Go to my profile to view my characters**

Something slammed into the tree stump home of the Smurflings, causing Slouchy to jump out of bed and fall onto the floor. Sassette stirred but went back to sleep, Snappy on the other hand awoke completely. He had no clue on what just happen, all he knew was his friend on the floor fighting a blanket. "Slouchy?" asked Snappy, "What are you doing?"

Slouchy managed to pull the blanket off of him and looked at Snappy in the eyes, "Something scared me," he said, "And no, its not a dream."

Nat awoke from hearing Slouchy's voice, "Guys?" he asked, "What's going on?"

"I don't know," said Snappy, "I just woke up just a few seconds before you."

"Something hit the side of the house," said Slouchy as he tossed his blanket back onto his bed, "It felt solid."

Snappy looked at the nearby window and saw a large horizontal crack leading up to the top right corner on the glass, "Whatever it is," said Snappy, "It nearly shattered the window."

"Where's the lantern?" asked Slouchy as he stood up, "Where is it?"

"I can't remember the last time we used the lantern," said Snappy, "Where's that flashlight?"

Any high-tech equipment in the possession of the smurfs were made by the green smurfs in their factories, their resources well spent on making useful equipment to get by life. Such equipment made were completely new to the smurfs, Chernov's most personal favorite was the typewriter. The Smurflings adapted some high-tech equipment to their personal use, such as electric lighting. Slouchy rummage around through a desk drawer and found an electric lantern, he turns it on and sat it on the desk.

"Where's the flashlight Slouchy?" asked Snappy again.

"I think its in the drawer at the nightstand." said Slouchy.

Snappy head over to the nightstand and opened the drawer and found the flashlight, a gray well-built weatherproof flashlight with a powerful LED smurf mini-bulb. He picked it up and flicked on its switch, the flashlight gave off a powerful bright light that can probably blind someone. The bright lights finally woke Sassette up from her slumber, she stirred as she rubbed her eyes with her fists. "What's going on guys?" asked Sassette, "What time is it?"

Snappy ignored her as he opened the front door and stepped outside, he shined his flashlight around to see if anything was there. All he saw was the usual forest plants and trees, nothing more. The noise came from the roof of the tree stump house, when Snappy looked up there he saw what caused the loud thud earlier. Snappy ran back inside to inform the Smurflings, "Hey guys," he announced, "You gotta look at this!"

Nat and Sassette climbed out of bed as the Smurflings ran outside to see what Snappy had discovered, what he found was a thick overgrown oak tree had toppled over and landed on top of their home. It was a surprise that the structure held since the oak tree could easily crush a mushroom house, seeing it made the Smurflings shiver. "How did the tree toppled over?" asked Nat.

Snappy pointed the flashlight to the base of the tree where its spine snapped, "What does this looked like to you smurfs?" he asked.

Nat took a good look at the base of the tree, his face soon whitened, "It looked like it had been smurfed down," he announced, "Someone chopped the tree down, the way it was chopped showed that whoever did chopped it down intended the tree to topple onto our home."

"We gotta tell Papa Smurf about this." said Snappy.

"Lets get dressed guys," said Nat, "When we have the chance."

The Smurflings head back inside and got dressed into their everyday clothing, "Are there anymore flashlights Snappy?" asked Sassette.

"I think this is the only one," said Snappy, "We'll get more flashlights around morning."

Once ready, the Smurflings head outside and out into the night. Before they leaved the area, they heard something give behind them. They turned and saw the downed tree crush their house like a letter press, "Oh smurf," said Snappy, "That was a close one, we would be trapped if we're inside for a few more minutes."

"I'm scared," said Sassette, "I want Smurfette."

"Let's go get Papa Smurf," said Snappy, "Then we'll stay at Smurfette's house if she's up for it."

The Smurflings started for the Smurf Village, walking through the shrubs awhile underneath the moonlight. The night seemed peaceful, they weren't expecting more bad scenarios to play out that night. Just when they walked into the Smurf Village, they thought they saw the misty haze of a smurf's silhouette before it disappeared into the night. "What was that?" asked Slouchy.

"Could somesmurf be also up?" asked Snappy.

"Chernov might," said Sassette, "He's always up in the middle of the night."

"The smurf looked a little too short to be Chernov," noted Slouchy, "Where is he by the way?"

The Smurflings head to the spot where they saw the humanoid smurf form at, there were no sign of the smurf anywhere. Whoever it was seemed to have vanished into the night, "Odd," said Nat, "Must be an illusion."

The Smurflings continued to Papa Smurfs house, when they approached his house they noticed the front door was kicked open. "That's not good," said Snappy, "Why would Papa Smurf leave his front door open?"

"Maybe he's airing out the place," said Nat, "Its quite cool out this night."

When the Smurflings head inside, Snappy's flashlight revealed a startling discovery. "Holy smurfberries!" cried Sassette.

They found the inside of Papa Smurf's house trashed, no sign of the village leader anywhere. Everything was knocked over and broken, cabinet doors were wide open and the bed was tossed over to the wall. What makes things even more horrifying was the sight of blood on the wall, it made the Smurflings anxiety go up. "Someone thrashed the house," said Snappy, "What is that?"

Snappy pointed the flashlight's beam over a puddle of liquid darkness, upon contact with light the puddle gave off a load of yellow fireworks display before disappearing in a puff of smoke. The Smurflings jumped in response, suddenly the flashlight's beam flickered and dimmed. "Smurf," grumbled Snappy as he shook the flashlight before pounding the palm of his hand against its head, "Low batteries."

"What just happened earlier?" said Nat, "We saw a puddle of oil vanish, can anysmurf explain to me how did that happen?"

"The puddle probably didn't like the light." said Sassette.

Snappy turned off the flashlight and placed it into his pocket, "Head over to Chernov's house," said Snappy, "He might shelter us for the night, maybe even have fresh batteries on his smurf."

"I hope so." said Sassette.

The Smurflings soon leave Papa Smurf's house, right after they head outside they began hearing a voice, "Safety is... REQUIRED for when you use manual... tools, you can SMURF yourself an injury from... IMPROPER CARE!"

The voice sounded maniac and distorted. Everytime it exclaimed its words it sounded like a demon. It broke the silence of the night, since it was so loud that anyone could hear it anywhere in the Smurf Village. "Repairing a hole in your roof is not as simple and SAFE as you might THINK, it can be... DANGEROUS. You might even fall TO THE GROUND accidentally!"

"Does that ring any bells to you smurfs?" asked Snappy.

"It sounds very familiar," said Slouchy, "Yet evil in some ways."

"You should have always... LEAVE THE JOB," yelled the voice, "To a professional!"

The echo of the voice should have woken the smurfs up, yet no smurf was complaining, the windows of many mushroom houses remain dark. Something wasn't right, the Smurflings managed to trace the source of the voice along the way to Chernov's house. They were shocked to see who it was.

It was a smurf, he stood there as dark oily shadows cling to his body, so much so that it was hard to tell who it was. There were also some blood at his feet, but its not his. "Who the?" asked Snappy as the Smurflings stood a comfortable distance from the smurf, "Oh smurf."

The smurf appeared to have killed another smurf, this was unheard of and unnatural. It pulled the head of a logger's ax out of its victim, fresh blood from the victim made the ax head glisten under the moonlight. "Handy Smurf," said the smurf, "Engineer and... MECHANIC of the Smurf... VILLAGE. If you need something... fixed, GIVE ME A HOLLAR! I'll have it done in... no time, even have it look SMURFY new... again. Easy as SMURF!"

Handy ran off with the ax, causing the Smurflings to jump back from his sudden movements. His victim was now in clear view, Sassette's heart sank into the pit of her stomach when she recognized who it was. "Smurfette!"

Sassette rushed over to the body as the other smurflings followed, there's no mistaken that this was indeed Smurfette. There was a large gaping hole in her back, blood covered most of her white dress. Her blond hair was a mess, indicating she put up a struggle before going down. Sassette was about to touch the blood when Snappy grab a hold of her, "Let's move Sassette," said Snappy, "There's nothing we could do for her now!"

"She's my sister for crying out smurf!" cried Sassette.

"Haaandy Smurf!" cried Handy somewhere in the village, "Engineer and... MECHANIC of the Smurf Village. If you need something fixed, GIVE ME A HOLLAR!"

"Why did you kill her!" screamed out Sassette.

"I'll have it done... IN NO TIME!"

The Smurflings bolt out of the area and head straight for Chernov's house. As they ran, a flash of light stunned them for a brief second. In that brief second, they saw two sheets of paper falling out of the sky, drifting to the ground. Snappy walked over to it and quickly picked the two sheets of paper up, "What are those?" asked Slouchy.

"These look like manuscript pages," said Snappy, "I can't read it in the moonlight though, we'll read these later."

Snappy folded the two manuscript pages and placed them inside his pants, the Smurflings then ran all the way to Chernov's house. There was light being emitted from the windows, the sight of it felt comforting for the Smurflings. "Snappy!" cried Slouchy, "Watch out!"

Snappy jumped out of the way as Handy tried to attack him with the logging ax, plowing the head into the dirt. It was unclear to the Smurflings how Handy was able to ambush them so fast, all they care about was getting to safety. "Run!" cried Sassette, "Run!"

"If you have any... furniture or EQUIPMENT that needs repairing," said Handy as he removed the ax head from the dirt and chases the Smurflings with it, "You should always have a PROFFESIONAL.. repair it!"

Nat opened the door and let the rest of the smurflings in before slamming the door into Handy's grinning face, he pounded on the door loudly before plowing the ax head into the door with all of his strength. Unlike the other mushroom houses that has wooden doors, Chernov's door is solid metal, it requires a lot of strength to force the ax head into the door.

"I am very CREATIVE," continued Handy, "My fire engine helped... saved our VILLAGE from FIRES! I was named captain of THE SMURF FIRE Brigade by PAPA SMURF. When there's smoke, there's alllways a... potential for FIRE!"

Handy's irrational voice soon fades away, he must be retreating when he realized that he couldn't get inside. It wasn't long before the Smurflings were alone once more. "Is he gone?" asked Sassette as her eyes were directed to the ax head, still embedded in the metal door from the outside.

Snappy looked out the window and saw nothing stirring in the darkness beyond, "Handy's gone." he confirms.

**TO BE CONTINUED...**


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer: I do not own any characters that were created by someone else**

**Claimer: Go to my profile to view my characters**

For now, the Smurflings were safe. But that doesn't guaranteed full emotional security for some Smurflings, Sassette broke down in tears as Slouchy tried to comfort her. "Smurfette," she sobbed, "He killed her in cold blood."

"I don't think that was Handy anymore Sassette," said Nat, "There's nothing left of him."

Snappy took a look at the first page of the manuscript, it was the title, "Children Of The Elder Smurfs," said Snappy, "By Anonymous."

"Anonymous," laughed Slouchy, "Whoever wrote it didn't want to be identified."

"Yeah," said Snappy as he flipped to the next page and read it, "It says here that the protagonists was attacked by an ax murderer in the dead of night."

"We were attacked by Handy," said Sassette, "He killed Smurfette with an ax."

"Oh its happening again," said Slouchy, the feeling sinking in as he places his hands on his cheeks, "Its happening again, isn't it?"

Snappy looked over at Chernov's desk and saw a small box of batteries, he rushed over to the desk and pulled up a chair for him to climb on. Once he in an elevated position, he was able to grab the batteries with ease. The batteries were marked blue, indicating that they're lithium. Green means they're rechargeable. If they're red, that means they're ordinary single use batteries.

Getting out the flashlight, Snappy removed its head and dumped out the used batteries into a nearby trash bin. He opened the cardboard box and pulled out 2 lithium batteries and placed them into his flashlight, he screws the flashlight's head back on before flicking its switch. The flashlight gave off a bright beam of light, more powerful than before.

He was just about to get down from the chair when he noticed another manuscript page, sitting on the center of the desk. Snappy picked it up and got down from the chair, "Hey smurfs," said Snappy, "I found another manuscript page."

"Another one?" asked Slouchy.

"Yeah." said Snappy before reading it out loud:

_The Taken stood before the Smurflings, it was hard to focus on them. The Darkness that controls them covers them with dark shadows, protecting them from all harm. Their purpose of existence was to serve the Dark Presence that possessed them, nothing left from their former lives but dead nerve twitches, mere echos of a once living thing. When Snappy shined a flashlight on a Taken to get a better view of its face, the light seemed to shine brighter. _

"Is there anymore flashlights around here?" asked Slouchy.

"Look around," said Snappy as he tucks the manuscript page into his pants, "Their might be some."

The Smurflings began to search the house for the flashlights, Snappy managed to find a backpack that fits his small frame. He took the backpack and dropped the batteries into it, he took an empty folder from a filing cabinet and placed the manuscript pages there. Then he placed the pages into the backpack before putting it on.

"I found some flashlights," said Sassette, "But they don't have any batteries in them."

"Where did you find them?" asked Nat.

"Tucked away in a corner underneath the wall counter," said Sassette, "These look brand new."

Sassette held a small box filled with flashlights, they were indeed brand new, never before used until tonight. Nat and Slouchy grabbed a flashlight as Snappy got the batteries out of his backpack, he handed two batteries each to Slouchy, Nat, and Sassette as they filled their flashlights with the batteries. Snappy grabbed a couple of extra flashlights, filled them with fresh batteries, then placed them into his backpack.

"So what's the plan?" asked Sassette.

"I don't know," said Snappy, "We stay here until morning I guess."

The electronic lightbulb that lit the entire room began to flicker, suddenly something caused the entire house to shift from its foundation. "I say we head for the Green Smurf Colony," said Snappy, "They'll know what to do."

"How are we going to go there anyway?" asked Sassette, "We can't get there on foot, we're going to need Feathers to get there."

"I haven't seen Feathers anywhere," said Nat, "I think there's a smurfvee right outside the village though."

"That's Chernov's," said Slouchy, "He could have taken it, since he's not here in all."

"He could have not," said Snappy, "A plan is better than no plan, its clearly not safe to stay-" The bulb pops, bursting into a million little pieces, "Here..."

The Smurflings turned on their flashlights, all four beams easily lit up the room. Not enough to be safe but just enough to see. Snappy rushed back to Chernov's desk and opened up a drawer, he reached inside and pulled out a revolver. "Are you serious?" asked Nat.

Papa Smurf wouldn't let them have firearms, Chernov and Brainy were clear on that. But now they weren't here, and nothing was going to stop them. "Does it look like we have a choice?" asked Snappy.

"Do you even know how to use that?" asked Slouchy.

"Yes," said Snappy, "But I'd never fired a gun outside of a shooting range before."

Snappy grabbed a box of ammunition for the handgun and dropped it into his backpack, he checked to see if it was loaded, sure enough it was. "Is there anymore guns?" asked Snappy.

"I think that's the only one," said Slouchy as he looked underneath the couch, revealing an empty space that guns were used to be stored in, "I think Chernov took it all."

"We'll have to make do with this one then," said Snappy, "Get's get outta here guys."

The Smurfings opened the front door and saw the ax Handy embedded to it, the handle was broken of at the neck. It laid nearby just at the foot of the door, Sassette closed the door behind her as the Smurflings head off into the night. Deep down, they knew they were on their own. No adult was going to help and protect them this time, they must take the brunt of the situation on their own.

The plan they had wasn't clear, the smurfs always go to the Colony when overrunned by something. The green smurfs had no problem with this, they seem to like having the smurfs over at their place for any reason. Wherever Chernov was, it's clear that he wasn't here. He could have taken the smurfs over to the Colony, just so happened to have forgotten the Smurflings. That was the kind of hope the Smurflings were running on, and it was running out.

After turning the corner, 4 black figures showed up out of nowhere, brandishing hatchets and sickles and large sticks. It was the Taken, just like the manuscript page Snappy found described. Shadowy darkness was covering their bodies like a cloud of smoke, so much so that it was hard to see their face. When the Smurflings got a closer look, they realized they were smurfs.

"The smurfberries seems ripe this year." one of them said in a demonic voice.

Snappy shined his flashlight into the face of one of the Taken, the light burns the darkness that protected it. The burning sounded like a table saw roaring at maximum RPM, started low at first before becoming really loud. When it got to the point where it was really loud, the cocoon flashed and vanished. The Taken was now unprotected. Now there was no doubt that this was indeed a smurf. Its eyes were liquid darkness, the iris' however were blood red.

Scared out of his mind, Snappy began firing away at the unprotected Taken as the Smurflings held the others back with their flashlights. Each time Snappy shot the Taken, the bullet's kinetic energy gave off puffs of white light where the bullet struck the Taken. After a few more shots, the Taken explodes into white and yellow sparkles as it collapsed to the ground, the static light quickly fades and the body was gone.

By the time the other Smurflings managed to remove the armor off of the rest of the Taken, Snappy gunned them down with his remaining bullets and they explode in a display of fireworks. "They vanished," said Sassette in surprise, "Nothing left of them, no trace at all. Even their weapons are gone!"

For a moment, Snappy felt like he was going to throw up. He gulped as he reloads the revolver, "I wonder how are we going to explain what happened tonight," he said, "I say we keep silent and play dumb, let the green smurfs figure it out on their own."

"Smart idea," said Slouchy, "If we make it to the Colony alive."

An ax flew above the Smurflings' heads and lodged itself into the wall of a mushroom house, they all turned towards the direction where it came from and saw 3 more Taken coming straight after them. They were yelling out of place speech, pure gibberish that is not understandable. The Smurflings aimed their flashlights at the Taken, they held their arms over their face as they were driven back, one of which was pinned down. When their darkness shield was removed, Snappy gunned them all down.

It didn't took much bullets to wipe them off the face of the earth, they gave off an explosion of lights that look like dandelions before vanishing completely. "As easy that everything seem," said Snappy, "We're going to need more conventional weapons if we are going to survive."

"Door of it's hinges?" wailed Handy's voice through the air, "Let meee... FIXED THAT!"

"We have to get to the smurfvee!" said Slouchy.

The Smurflings started running as the shadows around them began to move and the wind picking up, "If you uussse... the right BOLTS," continued Handy, "Then you shouldn't have... any PROBLEMS! Using the wrong screws and nails... can smurf severe DAMAGE to the frame, it cost resources to... REPLACE IT ALLLL!"

The Smurflings ran faster, passing several mushroom houses as the winds and shadows move even faster, in sync with each other. "The Smurf Village is made up of MUSHROOM homes, so any human BEING passing by will... think that they're SIMPLY poisonous SHROOMS. The houses are round and the roofs... well coned so that IT IS RESISTANT to the elements!"

Now the Smurflings were running as fast as they can, the shadows beginning to block out the light of the moon. Just when they past near a mushroom house, it burst open and a Taken armed with a nail board came running out of it. "Wanna hear my horn?" it blurted out in a demonic voice, the quote indicating that the smurf was Harmony.

The Smurflings held Harmony back with their flashlights, he was forced back into his house as his shadowy armor burned away. Snappy then moves in to gun him down with the revolver, he killed him with one shot to the head. As Harmony's body disappears, the Smurflings quickly moved on to the edge of the Smurf Village. Sure enough there was the smurfvee, sitting underneath an electronic overhead outdoor lamp with a small solar panel attached to the side, bathing the smurfvee with a safe haven of light.

"I guess Chernov hadn't taken the smurfvee after all." said Slouchy.

Just before they reached the smurfvee, they saw Handy standing on top of a mushroom house. He jumped down and held up a lead pipe, "If your pipes are clogged," said Handy, "It's going to take more than a... PLUNGER to remove the cork from the pipe, you have to go down there and GET YOURRR HANDSS... dirty!"

Handy charged at Slouchy and slammed the lead pipe against his arm, he yelped as he shined the flashlight straight into Handy's eyes. Handy made a monstrous groan as he was stunned by the light, after a quick moment he returned his attention to Slouchy. "Are you okay Slouchy?" asked Sassette.

"He gave me the smurf arm," cried Slouchy, "But I'm fine, I'm just trying to hold back my tears is all."

"Repair all the CRACKS in the facade of your... house," said Handy, "It can become a MAJOR... problem if NEGLECTED!"

Handy's protective darkness could no longer withstand the flashlight's beams no longer, it flashed off Handy's body within a millisecond. Even though he was no longer protected by the Dark Presence, he still posed as a thread. He was just about to come after Sassette when Snappy gunned him down, it took a few shots to make Handy burst into light before vanishing, lead pipe and all.

Snappy was contentiously firing dry rounds at Handy until he vanished completely, shocked from the ambush he had endured. Sassette have to grab Snappy's arm just to get him to snap out of it, he looked straight into her eyes and stopped pulling the trigger like a mad man. It took him a moment to respond, "Thanks," he said as Sassette let's go of his arm, "Its just that Slouchy was hurt by Handy from being hit by the pipe."

"Nothing's broken," said Slouchy, "Can we just get into the smurfvee?"

"Of course." said Snappy.

The Smurflings ran to the smurfvee and managed to head into the safe haven of light it was sheltering in, Snappy opened the driver side door and the rest of the smurflings climbed into the cab. Once all the smurflings were in, Snappy hopped in and closed the door before locking all the doors in the cab with a flick of a switch. Once safe, the Smurflings took a moment to recover from the horror they faced along the way here.

Snappy looked up at the ceiling of the smurfvee and saw that the internal lights were on, more than enough light they need to be safe. Slouchy pulled off his shirt and examined where Handy had hit him, there was a massive bruise right around the shoulder and armpit. It looked quite bad, but at least the looks wasn't as bad as the physical pain.

"Oh Slouchy." said Sassette with pity in her voice.

"It didn't hurt as much as I thought it would be," said Slouchy as he put his shirt back on, "I would have just shrugged it off if it took even longer to get to safety."

"I wonder what is powering this light." said Nat as he looked out the window."

"Its battery operated," said Sassette, "Powered by the sun, did you see the solar panel attached to the lamp anyway?"

"No." said Snappy.

Snappy sat there as he stared at the dashboard, staring at the digital gauges that uses the metric system to measure whatever. He adjust the seat and mirrors before putting on his seatbelt, "Do you even know how to drive?" asked Nat.

"No," said Snappy, "But I know a lot about the electronics and switches of the smurfvee, Cherskey taught me a lot about it."

Snappy saw the power button on the side of the steering column, when he pressed it the engine roared to life and the lights on the dashboard came on. "And the most important commodity for our situation," said Snappy as he turned on the headlights, "Lights."

He flipped another switched and turned the roof lights on, extending the range on how far they are able to see out in night. Snappy shift the gear into drive and took a deep breath, "Here we go." said Snappy.

Snappy presses the gas pedal with his foot and drove the smurfvee away. As the Smurflings leave the safety of the overhead lamp, its lightbulb flickered and exploded in a shower of sparks.

**TO BE CONTINUED...**

_Rachael saw the malevolent spirit coming, the unnatural earthquake made her spring into action. Chernov saw it too, they began to prepare for an evacuation. Before the couple depart, they gave each other a kiss for good luck. As Chernov prepares for battle, Rachael rushed over to Smurfette's house and gotten a hold of Baby Smurf without Smurfette's knowledge. When the Dark Presence attacked, Rachael ran off into the night with the infant as Chernov fought to the bitter end._

_Cherskey and Nelly, the children of Chernov and Rachael, were now on their own. Before hand, Chernov taught them how to survive, how to catch their own food, how to improvise useless junk to make tools. By the time the twins were by themselves, they need their parents no more._


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer: I do not own any characters that were created by someone else**

**Claimer: Go to my profile to view my characters**

Driving down the dirt road was an eerie feeling for the Smurflings, the darkness appears to be closing in around them from all angles. The bright lights were at least a comfort in the night, always has been for humanoids. It was just a false sense of security, if the Dark Presence was strong enough it can blow out any light source with a single swipe from a hand from kilometers around. It just hadn't reached that level of strength yet, but it will soon will be.

They hadn't encountered anything down the road for awhile, the rest of the smurflings fell asleep as Snappy kept a steady paste down the road. He nearly drifted asleep himself, but after nearly veering off the road and into a tree he became more alert and corrected his mistake. After driving for 20 minutes, Snappy noticed the smurfvee's twin-electric engines were running low of power. The meter monitoring power levels say its 10 percent, nearing complete depletion.

Snappy doesn't know how long he could keep driving until they get to the colony, so when he spotted a green smurf outpost down the road he pulls the vehicle over. An electric overhead light was on, so Snappy cleverly parked the smurfvee underneath its glow. He shuts the engine off and turned off the head and roof lights, "Hey smurfs," he said, "Wake up."

"What happened?" asked Sassette as she came to, "Are we there yet?"

"We hit a snag," said Snappy, "The smurfvee's batteries are running low, I can't take this thing any farther from hear on out."

"Oh crazy monkeys," cursed Sassette, "Where are we exactly?"

"We're in a green smurf outpost," said Snappy, "I'm going to see if anysmurf is here, maybe some supplies we also need."

"I'm not staying here," said Nat, "I'll come with you."

"I'm coming with you Snappy," said Slouchy, "You might need help."

"I guess I'll come as well," said Sassette, "You might need all the help we can give you."

"Thanks guys," said Snappy as he grabbed his revolver and backpack, "I appreciate it."

Once Snappy put his backpack on, the Smurflings turned on their flashlights before leaving the vehicle. There were two buildings to investigate, one was the massive garage, the other appears to be the barracks. "What do you want to check first?" asked Snappy.

Before any of the Smurflings replied, the ground suddenly shook. As they tried to hang onto the vehicle for support, they saw another smurfvee drove out of nowhere and crashed into the barracks entrance. The smurfvee appears to have shadows possessing it, the Dark Presence must be close. They heard a smurf scream once the poltergeist slammed into the barracks, "Help!" cried a voice coming from inside the barracks.

"Somesmurf's hurt!" cried Sassette.

Something roared a mournful roar from the darkness, as if the forest woke up. The lightbulb shining light over the smurfvee suddenly went dark, something must have shut off the power as the lights in the barracks and garage went out. The poltergeist backed up out of the smurfvee and turned itself around before aiming straight at the Smurflings, they saw that no one was behind the wheel of the smurfvee. It sat there for a moment, staring down the Smurflings. Then all of its 4 tires began to spin rapidly as it drives towards them, "Spread out!" cried Nat.

The Smurflings split up as the poltergeist slammed into the back of their smurfvee, as it went into reverse the Smurflings surrounded the poltergeist and aimed their flashlights at it. The light began to eat away at the darkness controlling the smurfvee as it tries to run over Sassette, she dodged out of the way awhile keeping her flashlight trained at it. A few seconds later, the poltergeist burst into a light show before vanishing without a trace.

"Help me!" cried a smurf from inside the barracks, "I'm hurt, I can't move. Is there anysmurf out there?"

"Yes," called out Snappy as he and the other smurflings rushed to the barracks, "Where are you?"

"Back here!" cried out the smurf before he began coughing, "I'm back here!"

The Smurfings crept into the dark barracks through the gaping maw the poltergeist made and saw the helpless smurf at the very back of the room, "Oh my smurf!" cried Sassette.

The smurf's skin was blue, not to mention he was wearing glasses. It was Brainy, he had survived the initial attack on the Smurf Village. He thought he would try to cheat fate by slipping away, but it failed. Now he lay injured, his leg appeared twisted at an impossible angle as Brainy was coughing loudly. What was amazing was that Brainy managed to keep his glasses on when thrown across the room like that.

"Brainy?" asked Snappy as he shined his flashlight at him, "Brainy is that you?"

"Snappy?" he asked as he shielded his eyes from the light beam, "Yes, its me."

Snappy lowers the light onto Brainy's broken leg, it looked quite bad, worse than the bruise on Slouchy's shoulder. "Oh smurf," said Snappy, "What happened?"

"I was looking for fresh batteries," said Brainy, "Then something crashed into the barracks and sent me across the room, I broke several of my ribs and as you can clearly see, my leg."

"The Dark Presence possessed a smurfvee and crashed into the barracks," said Snappy, "But we took it out."

"Smurfs," said Brainy, "It has caught up to me, caught up to smurfs too. It already got Clumsy, its now after me."

"Clumsy's gone?" asked Slouchy.

"It wasn't Clumsy when I came back for him," said Brainy, "We tripped awhile we were running, then the Dark Presence ate him whole. That stupid smurf, I regret not having him close to my side. By the way, are you heading to the Green Smurf Colony as well?"

"Yes." said the Smurflings in unison.

"Its going to come back for me," said Brainy, "I know it."

Brainy reached into his backpack awhile fighting his ribs from stabbing him, he pulled out three manuscript pages and handed it to Snappy, "It didn't get the pages," said Brainy, "What happened on one of the manuscript pages came true, I knew this was going to happen, I knew it deep down."

His eyes drifted away from the Smurflings and back outside, they widened from what he saw necks. "He's back!" he cried as he pulled out a 1 mm automatic pistol, "He's back!"

The Smurflings turns and saw a Taken approaching them, "Step aside." said Brainy.

They stepped back as Brainy fired a shot into the Taken, the bullet bounced off of it in purple sparks, slightly stunning it. Brainy fired another shot, it had the same effect as the last. The Taken wasn't harmed, and it continued towards the smurfs. "He's not stopping!" cried Brainy.

The Smurflings aimed their flashlights at the Taken, it growled as it held an arm over its eyes. It stumbled back outside, tripping from the small stairs before running off into the night. "Did you see that?" asked Brainy, "In the light, you can hurt them!"

"Yes, we know that already." said Snappy.

"Its Clumsy," said Brainy, "I know its him, please put him out of his misery."

The Smurflings leave Brainy as they walked outside, they looked around for Clumsy but didn't see him. "Where is he?" asked Sassette.

Something stirred to the Smurflings' right, they walked by a crashed smurfvee and saw a metal barrel rolled by. When they got close to it, a hatchet came flying out of the darkness and lodged itself into the smurfvee's exterior, giving off a loud clang upon impact. The Smurflings turned and saw Clumsy coming after them, holding another hatchet and a machete, "Watch your step." he said in a demonic voice.

The Smurflings aimed their flashlights at him, within a couple of seconds his dark cocoon flashed off his body, it took one shot just to kill him. As Clumsy's body burst into static light and vanish, they heard Brainy screamed again. They returned to find him crashing through the wall on the far end of the barracks in a haze of darkness, "Something tore a hole through the wall!" cried Sassette.

"Brainy!" cried Snappy.

When the Smurflings reached the newly formed hole in the wall, they heard an ironic surprise, "Please," said a voice, "Don't feed the animaaals."

The Smurflings stepped out into a large clearing and looked around for Brainy, he was nowhere in sight. "Where did he go?" asked Slouchy.

"Fishing... IS ONLY PERMITTED... with special permission from... Papa... Smurf." said an exaggerated distorted voice. The Smurflings turned and saw Brainy up on the roof, brandishing a logger's ax similar to Handy's. Shadows cover every corner of Brainy's body, the Dark Presence had taken him. "Obey... PAPA SMURF'S INSTRUCTIONS... at all times!" said Brainy as he jumped down from the roof of the barracks and onto the ground below.

"Brainy!" cried Sassette, "Brainy! No!"

Brainy began running, or gliding. He was moving at impossible speeds, his outline a blur when he zipped through the area in a random pattern. This phenomenon was known to experts as Teleflanking, the Taken simply tries to outflank its target moving like Sonic the Hedgehog. "Never approach Gargamel within 50 YARDS!" blurted Brainy in a fast pace, "Never approach any other HUMAN BEING within 30 YARDS!"

Brainy was moving so fast that the Smurflings were having a hard time focusing their flashlights at him, at times Brainy stopped teleflanking and tried to swing his ax at one of the smurflings. When the smurfling dodged the ax, Brainy continued doing his run. "Papa Smurf wants things to BE NIICCEE!" roared Brainy, "That way we won't have any trouble, and I don't have to... PUNISH ANYBODY!"

"No smurfs move that fast!" cried Sassette, "It's impossible!"

"Try aiming where he is going to be," said Snappy, "Maybe that will work."

Sure enough, it worked. The Smurflings managed to get a light on Brainy, "IT IS AGAINST THE RULES... to remove any enchanted or historical artifacts from PAPA SMURF or... GRANDPA SMURF," rambled Brainy, "This includes books that you would otherwise FIND IN MY LIBRARY, or even simple potions! Smurf!"

Brainy's protective darkness that protected him flashed off, once it flashed off he stopped teleflanking and paused for a moment. Seems that the only way for teleflanking to be possible was the dark shroud that protects the Taken, without it they're stuck at normal speed. Despite this, Brainy held up his ax and charged at the Smurflings. He did a monstrous groan when Snappy stunned him with the flashlight, awhile he was distracted Snappy gunned him down until Brainy burst into a shower of sparks.

When his body disappeared, Snappy stood there staring at the spot where Brainy had been. He tried processing the fact that Brainy was with them one moment and against them the next, he was gone so fast that the Smurflings didn't get a chance to say goodbye. Recalling how many times Brainy tried to tooter them and putting it all off made Snappy actually miss him, the other Smurflings felt the same way as well, it took them awhile to get back to reality.

"What do we need again?" asked Nat.

"Guns and batteries," said Snappy, "Maybe its in the barracks."

"Brainy did use a gun on Clumsy earlier," said Sassette, "Did he drop it?"

They try their best not to mourn Brainy's demise, trying to stay focus on what was happening. Snappy finds the handgun Brainy used on the floor, Brainy did dropped it after all. He picked it up and handed the gun to Sassette, "I trust you with this," said Snappy, "Since you are the brightest one."

"Thanks Snappy," said Sassette as she took the gun, she tried to walk away and ironically slammed face first against the side of a bunk bed. She gripped her face as Nat and Slouchy tried their best not to laugh, "Oh very funny guys."

The Smurflings searched the place for anything of use, they managed to find batteries and ammunition. Snappy luckily found a powerful Standard Infantry Rifle, or SIR, the rifle was popular among green smurfs since the barrel can be changed to fit shotgun and sniper rounds. The gun was too big for Snappy to hold properly, but since he first fired a gun using an SIR he can manage it well.

"That's one big gun." said Nat.

"If you don't hold it correctly when you use it," said Snappy, "It hits you in the face with its rear."

Snappy loaded the gun with a 1.18 mm clip, he grabbed a few more clips before heading out back to the smurfvee. "I'm tired." said Sassette as she head back to the smurfvee, hauling a sack full of ammunition.

"I am too," said Snappy, "Can we go now guys?"

"We gotta find a way to recharge the smurfvee's electric engine," said Snappy, "Maybe there's a generator in the garage that might help us."

"What do you need Snappy?" asked Sassette.

"Some jumper cables, a generator, and some fuel to run it." said Snappy.

"What?" asked Slouchy, having no clue what Snappy was talking about.

"One of you smurfs follow me and I'll show you," said Snappy, "It isn't that hard."

"I'll come with you." said Sassette.

"Okay," said Snappy, "Follow me."

Snappy and Sassette walked into the garage where they found more liquid dark puddles on the floor, they shined their flashlights onto the puddles which caused them to boil before bursting into light fragments. "Don't step into one of them," said Snappy, "I don't want to find out what would happen if you do."

After looking around the garage, Snappy found a generator at the nearby corner. "Here's the generator," said Snappy, "Sassette, help me with this."

Sassette offered a hand and helped Snappy dragged it outside, to the smurflings it weighed a ton. They managed to get it outside where Snappy checked for fuel, "It's dry," said Snappy, "There must be fuel inside."

Snappy and Sassette head back into the garage and found the gas cans, he also found the jumper cables and grabbed those as well. He took them outside and filled the generator with the gas cans, then hooked up the jumper cables up to the generator. There was a small panel at the foot of the overhead lamp, he opened it and found two wires going to and from the lightbulb above. "Watch my magic guys." said Snappy.

The smurflings watched as he used the alligator clips of the jumper cables to peel away some of the insulation off of the wires, it took awhile but he managed to get them hooked up. "Okay," he said, "I hope this works."

Snappy grabbed the cord of the generator and yanked on it, nothing. He pulled on it a few more times, "Start genny," he said, "Start!"

After a few more tries, Snappy gave it one last tug and the generator roared to life. The overhead lamp above flickered back to life and bathed the Smurflings and smurfvee with its protective light once more. "Good work Snappy," praised Sassette, "How did you know how to do that?"

"Cherskey taught me," said Snappy, "He's very good at electronics."

Snappy grabbed a large cable that was wrapped around the side of the generator and opened a small porthole door on the backside of the smurfvee, "He also told me that the green smurfs designed their generators to recharge smurfvee vehicles when in need," he continued, "Let's see if this works."

He inserted the plug into the car's outlit, Snappy hopped back into the Smurfvee and saw the battery meter was on. It showed that it was recharging, "Okay smurfs," said Snappy, "Its now recharging, all we have to do is wait until its fully charge, then we'll head back onto the road again."

"Good to hear," said Slouchy as he opened up the passenger side door, "I'm going to catch some sleep awhile the smurfvee recharge."

"I am too." said Sassette.

"Me three." said Nat.

"I'll stay out and watch then," said Snappy, "Sleep lightly though, just in case we get attacked again."

Nat, Slouchy, and Sassette turned off their flashlights and hopped into the smurfvee. There they rest as Snappy keeps a lookout awhile the smurfvee recharges, he sat on the ground next to the smurfvee awhile listening to the drone of the generator. The noise kept Snappy awake, a good thing too since he was getting used to the light. It took more than half an hour before the smurfvee fully recharged, once fully recharged Snappy removed the plug and wrapped it back in its holder in the generator.

The generator began to sputter as the light it was powering began to flicker, then it conked out and the overhead lamp goes out a second time. Snappy had no need for the generator now, he left it there for any other smurf to use as he gets back into the smurfvee, started it up, and drove away towards the Green Smurf Colony.

**TO BE CONTINUED...**

_Papa Smurf sat at his desk for a moment, his palm over his face. Having been waken by the loud noise in the middle of the night, it was getting difficult to fall back to sleep. Thoughts of darkness floods his mind, like an illness that never goes away. He tries to convince himself that the Dark Presence was long gone, just a memory, how wrong he was._

_He sensed something behind him, he turned around and his eyes tried to process the horror he was witnessing. The Dark Presence was there, in his house, and there was no way out. The light he had lit in the lantern has all but fizzled out, it does Papa Smurf no good anyway. The entity attacked the village leader, he let out a loud scream as he struggled, try to fight back. All he did was wasted his energy, he soon lets go as the unrelenting darkness engulfs him._


	6. Chapter 6

**Disclaimer: I do not own any characters that were created by someone else**

**Claimer: Go to my profile to view my characters**

"You look like you've taken such a shock," said Creg, a green smurf doctor at the Green Smurf Colony, "Tell me Snappy, how do you feel?"

"I feel like I've been through a nightmare." he responded.

The arrival of the Smurflings was a big surprise for the Colony, Snappy was too tired to explain what happened when he parked the smurfvee in the middle of one of the green smurf villages. When the green smurfs got to him, they found Snappy slumped over the wheel awhile the rest of the Smurflings were also sleeping. The next morning, the green smurfs took the Smurflings to go see a doctor due to the state of their appearance.

"Can you tell me what exactly happened last night Snappy?" asked Creg.

Images of darkness flooded Snappy, from Smurfette's murder to Brainy being taken by the evil. "We were attacked," said Snappy, "Everysmurf is dead, it was awful."

"Rick sent a vertibird into the village to check things out," said Creg, "It was just an hour ago, they came back with reports of the Smurf Village being deserted. They also found a lot of blood but they found no bodies whatsoever."

That was no surprise for the Smurflings, every time they killed a Taken it burst into a million lightning bugs. Creg finished checking Snappy and moves on checking the rest of the smurflings. He checked reflexes, eye pupil correlation, breath, pulse, and a hearing test. By the time he's done, he took a deep breath as he popped open a vodka bottle. "Everything seems to be normal," said Creg as he pulled fuzz out of his brown hair awhile taking a swig of vodka, "We were quite worried when he found you unconcious in that smurfvee, the trip from the Smurf Village to the Colony must have been hard."

"Oh Creg," said Slouchy, "I need you to take a look at something."

"What is it that you need to have looked at Slouchy?" asked Creg.

Slouchy took off his red shirt and showed Creg the massive bruise he got from Handy, "Wow," said Creg, "I've seen such bruises before but not on a smurfling, it looks like someone hit you with a blunt object."

"It was from one of the attackers." said Slouchy, trying his best to tell the truth without revealing the crucial details.

"Did you see who it was?" asked Creg.

"The darkness of the night hid his face." said Slouchy.

Creg examined the massive bruise, he even jolted Slouchy's arm back and forth to see what actually hurt. "When green smurfs get injuries like this," said Creg, "There was usually broken bones to find, nothing seems to be broken."

"He was relaxed when he got hit." said Snappy.

"What did you get hit by?" asked Creg.

"A lead pipe," said Slouchy, "One that was never been used for plumbing yet."

"I think there's nothing wrong with your shoulder Slouchy," said Creg, "But if there's any problems you're having, you come find me. Okay?"

"Okay." said Slouchy.

"You smurflings go to the Command Center and check up on Richard," said Creg, "He's the green smurf who knows pretty much about anything, I can't believe Chernov wasn't there to help you."

The Smurflings waved goodbye and left the clinic, they walked down the paved road passing several spider holes that the green smurfs constructed and live in. The tall trees tower over the Colony shade it from the harsh sun, in some ways the Green Smurf Colony was more beautiful since it was deep within a forest and not in the middle of a clearing like the Smurf Village. The atmosphere feels relieving for the Smurflings, easing the fears from last night.

When they approached the Command Center, they wondered what will they find inside. "What are we going to tell Rick?" asked Sassette.

"I say we tell him everything," said Snappy, "He'll know what to do."

Richard, or Rick, was Chernov's adviser and close friend. His task was to keep all the green smurfs in the colony well informed of events and news coming from either the human civilizations or at home, he's quite helpful and very friendly. Being a radio enthusiast in all, he's really good at communication and information gathering. He had helped the smurfs heavily in the past, maybe he'll help the Smurflings in their situation.

When they arrived into the Command Center, Rick was there, glued to his radio equipment as always. He would sit there, talking into his microphone to anyone who has a receiver for 8 hours a day. This was all he does, unless Chernov pulls him away from his HAM radio for something important. "Rick," said Snappy, "You have a moment?"

Rick turned around and saw the Smurflings come in, "Well I'll be damned," he contemplated as he took off his headphones and sat it aside, "Isn't it the Smurflings, could you explain to me what happened last night?"

The Smurflings had to tell somebody, so they told Rick everything. About how they were attacked by Handy, and how the events on the manuscript pages were coming true. Rick was gullible in all, but he didn't know what to make of it. "So you shot a smurf," said Rick, "And his body vanished just like that?"

"Yes." said Snappy.

"They were bullet proof until you pointed a flashlight at them?" asked Rick.

"Yes." said the Smurflings in unison.

Rick scratched his head and thought for a moment, "Okay," said Rick, "Where is these manuscript pages?"

"I had them stored in my backpack." said Snappy.

"Oh," said Rick, "The green smurfs were kind to take your things and deliver them here, even the weapons you've brought with you."

Rick picked up Snappy's backpack and tossed it to him, he opened it and pulled out the folder containing the manuscript pages. "Here they are." said Snappy as he handed them to Rick.

Rick took the folder and opened it up, he reads one of the manuscript pages about the part where Papa Smurf was taken by the Dark Presence. "I know this handwriting," said Rick, "This is Chernov's handwriting, I've read many of his books. I know his handwriting from anywhere."

"No one was acclaimed the author," said Snappy, "It just says Anonymous."

"If it would be any author," said Rick, "It would be Chernov, speaking of Chernov there's no sign of him and Rachael anywhere. We looked for signs of them everywhere but to no avail, I fear they may be victims in the attack."

"There were no bodies at the Smurf Village, right?" asked Snappy.

"From what the reports say," said Rick, "They found a lot of blood but not a single corpse."

"We did found Smurfette's body," said Snappy, "Freshly slain."

"Mama's dead!" cried Rick, he quickly covered his mouth thinking someone overheard him.

"You're serious?" he whispered.

"If they say they found no bodies," said Slouchy, "Then Smurfette's body could be removed from the village."

Rick wasn't taking the news of Smurfette's death very well, the Smurflings' shouldn't had mentioned it. The first generation of green smurfs owe their existence to Smurfette, since she is technically their mother. Many green smurfs are close to her, they often try to show more unconditional love than the smurfs. If word gets around that she's dead, chaos might struck. "Oh this is not good," he said as he placed his hands over his temples, "This is not good!"

"We're going to need your help Rick," said Sassette, "You're are only hope left."

"I'll do what I can," said Rick, "But please... I need a moment by myself."

"Rick!" cried Snappy.

"Okay," said Rick, he scribbled something down on a notepad, tore it out, and handed it to Snappy, "Take this to GSV 6, they'll get you what you need there."

"Thanks Rick." said Snappy.

"Now if you ever," said Rick, "Now I know this might not be possible but, if you ever find Smurfette's body or her skeleton, can you please bring her back here?"

"If I find her, I will." said Sassette.

"Thanks," said Rick, "It would put a lot of green smurfs at peace once they heard the news. Now go on before... before Dashie gets here."

Dashie was Rick's girlfriend, she looks similar to Smurfette's old self like some of the green smurfettes here in the colony. And just like Smurfette's old self, she's not that nice, especially to smurflings.

The Smurflings leave the Command Center and head for Green Smurf Village #6, or GSV 6, the green smurf village is responsible for making products used for daily life. They also make batteries, which is an important commodity for flashlights to work. When they arrived at GSV 6, they located the store that houses electronics. When they walked inside, they saw that the store looked similar to a garage.

There was nothing but a wooden counter top made out of plywood and wooden boards, insulated wires and cables were stretched along the side of the room which could be powering something. The walls were made out of metal sheets that could be used for storm shelters. Old LED bulbs lit up the room, one of them was flickering, signaling that it needs to be changed.

The clerk, a green smurfette wearing a pair of green overalls that appeared to be worn for two weeks straight, was sleeping on the counter. Her hair was messy and her skin appears to be covered in brown grime, she reminded the Smurflings on how uncivilized green smurfs can be.

"Excuse me," said Snappy, "Hello?"

The clerk stirred and raised her head, she had dirty goggles on and her face appears to be covered in black soot. "Um... yeah?" she asked, "You need something?"

"Rick sent us," said Snappy as he gave her the note Rick had written, "Giving us permission to get a few things."

"Oh Ricky," said the clerk nonchalantly, "What do you need smurflings?"

"Powerful flashlights and lithium batteries for the flashlights," said Snappy, "One for each of us."

"Oh," said the clerk, "Scared of the dark, huh?"

"Its not the darkness we fear," said Nat, "Its what's hiding in it."

"Damn those nocturnal creatures," said the clerk, "Screw those vampires and werewolves, I'll be right back."

The clerk heads to the back room as the Smurflings waited, 5 minutes later she returned with a cardboard box. She sat it on the table and pulled out a flashlight that was 2 times bigger than what the Smurflings had. "These flashlights are better than the standard model," said the clerk, "Better than what you have on your person."

She could see the flashlight sticking out of Slouchy's pocket, impressive that she knew what kind of flashlight it was. "I have a lot of crap lying around," said the clerk, "Is there anything else you need?"

"A smurfvee," said Snappy, "We lost the one we had."

"Can't help you there," said the clerk, "Go to GSV 9, they'll might provide-"

The flickering LED bulb finally popped, the noise made the clerk jump, "Well sh#t!" she cursed, "That's it, I'm changing all the bulb that are failing."

As the clerk went back to the backroom grumbling under her breath, Snappy grabbed the cardboard box off the table and handed each Smurfling a Heavy-Duty flashlight, "I love green smurf products," said Sassette, "So reliable."

"Let's hope they can save our lives then." said Snappy.

The Smurflings then head off to GSV 9 where they saw smurfvees everywhere, they walked around and found the place to rent a smurfvee. "Right over here smurfs," said Snappy as he pointed to the building in particular, "That might be it."

They head inside the building, they saw a large room with the garage in the back. They heard the sound of a miner saw rip away at a pipe, it reminded them of the darkness burning away with light from last night. The noise ended with the clanging of a metal pipe, they head into the back and saw a green smurf mechanic picking up a metal pipe from the ground. He was wearing a pair of green overalls and was also dirty, covered in oil and grease from working at a lot of cars.

"Um excuse me." said Snappy, "Hello?"

The smurf shot a looked at the Smurflings, looking a bit confused. "Um, you need me?" he asked.

"Is this a place where I could get a smurfvee?" asked Snappy.

"Yes," said the mechanic as he put the pipe on a workbench, "Let me get out the forms."

It took awhile, but the Smurflings managed to get a smurfvee. They don't have to walk far to get one, a smurfvee was delivered to them after just 20 minutes. The green smurf who drove it exchanged it with the Smurflings before heading into the garage, "Well that was easy." said Snappy as he got behind the wheel.

Snappy drove the smurfvee back to the Command Center where he parked it next to it, he and the smurflings soon moved all their things they had gathered from last night's trip to the smurfvee. Dashie walked by and saw the Smurflings loading it, she grumbled angrily under her breath as she head back inside. "Stubborn unsmurfy smurf." whispered Sassette.

By the time they're done, the Smurflings rest inside the cab and took a moment to come up with a plan, "So what are we going to do?" asked Sassette, "When night comes, we're going to have one smurf of a fight again."

"I'm not sure where to start," said Snappy, "The only thing we could do at the moment was find manuscript pages."

Slouchy opened the glove compartment and a couple of manuscript pages fell out of it, he picked it up and handed it to Snappy, "As if on cue." he comment.

"More pages?" asked Snappy as he looks at them, "Hmm..."

_Against all odds, Cherskey and Nelly held their ground as the large masses of Taken swarm them. They knew how to fight these shades well, they held the Taken off with flares and flare guns awhile trying their best to perform careful shots at unprotected Taken. Suddenly they heard a loud noise, it sounded like a vehicle. At the moment where the battle seems lost, a smurfvee drove into the battlefield. They took out a couple of Taken before coming to a complete stop, the passenger side door opens and Sassette stuck her head out._

"_Come on!" she called out to them, "Get inside, quick!"_

"That's what we should do tonight," said Nat, "Go find Cherskey and Nelly."

"They knew how to take care of themselves," said Slouchy, "Having them on our side will better the odds, they're more used to war than us."

"But where are we going to find them?" asked Sassette.

"The manuscript said that we're going to find them at night," said Snappy, "We're going to drive right into the area, and 'accidentally' find them."

"Since we don't have much of a choice," said Slouchy, "Let's do it."

"We should rest," said Snappy, "Get something to eat and sleep for a bit, it's going to be a long night."

**TO BE CONTINUED...**

_Dashie thought that the Smurflings were no good, thinking that they were responsible for Smurfette's death. She took a swig of moonshine as she stares at a picture of her, she thought of the last time she said goodbye to her. After a few more drinks, Dashie picked up a hand radio and round up some green smurfs. Using authority she didn't knew she had, she ordered the green smurfs to arm themselves, this spells trouble for the Smurflings._


	7. Chapter 7

**Disclaimer: I do not own any characters that were created by someone else**

**Claimer: Go to my profile to view my characters**

The Smurflings managed to get something to eat since they were ravenously hungry. They slept half the day in the smurfvee, it was the best sleep they ever had. On occasion, a green smurfette will walk by and ogle at them, saying how cute the are or just gaze at them in awe. By the time the sun was just about to set, an alarm clock went off and the Smurflings woke up one by one. "Is everysmurf ready?" asked Snappy.

"I am." said Slouchy.

"I think so." said Nat.

"Yes." said Sassette.

Snappy turned on the internal lights of the smurfvee before turning on the head and roof lights, "I can't believe they were able to survive this long," said Sassette, "Brainy managed to make it through the initial attack but wasn't able to make it through-"

"Can we please not mention Brainy at all?" asked Snappy.

"Um... okay." said Sassette.

Snappy started the engine and drove the smurfvee into the woods as the sun was creeping below the horizon, the sky gets dimmer and dimmer until eventually it became night. "This is insane," said Snappy once the sun had fully set, "Driving through the forest with only a manuscript page somesmurf had written to guide us, it's just crazy."

"Why did you say that Snappy?" asked Sassette.

"Because we don't exactly know where or when the manuscript page takes place," noted Snappy, "This is crazy, we might as well drive off a cliff if the manuscript page said so."

"And we survive after falling 500 ft." added Slouchy, "Only to drown in the rapids of a rushing river."

"That's lazy writing," said Nat," There's gotta be more than simply drowning in the river, you know. You can't just end the story there, just like that."

How could you end a story?" asked Sassette.

"I'll end it with an epilogue," said Nat, "Explaining the aftermath once the events of the story had taken place, giving it a proper ending."

"I just have to ask," said Slouchy, "Was Chernov's typewriter on his desk when we were at his house?"

"There was only a pack of batteries and a manuscript page," said Snappy, "There was no typewriter at all."

"Had somesmurf taken it?" asked Sassette.

"Maybe Chernov," said Slouchy, "That was only a suggestion, I am not sure he did took it with him to wherever he was going."

"That seems improbable, said Snappy, "One of the manuscript pages said he actually died."

"It said he fought to the bitter end," contradicted Sassette, "The bitter end of what exactly?"

"His life." answered Snappy.

"If he's not the protagonist," said Sassette, "Then who?"

Snappy turned his head and looked at Sassette in the eyes, "We are."

"Look out!" cried Slouchy.

Snappy shot his attention back to the front and saw they were heading towards a boulder at full speed, he swerved around the rock in a state of panic an lost control of the smurfvee. "Hang on!" he cried.

The Smurflings plowed through thick bushes at full speed, when they got to the other side of the vegetation they were greeted with a shower of yellow fireworks that lit up the forrest like New Years day. Snappy stomped on the breaks and the smurfvee came to a screeching halt. It took a moment for Sassette to stop screaming from all the chaos.

Slouchy just look at her awhile picking his ear with his pinkie, Sassette's cheeks blushed from embarrassment. "Why!" he asked.

"I panicked." whimpered Sassette.

"Well at least there's drama." chuckled Nat.

When the dust eventually cleared, the Smurflings found themselves in a small clearing. In the center of the clearing was a small treehouse, standing no more than half a meter tall. It had a balcony that surroundedthe tree house, equipped with safety rails so anysmurf on there won't fall off. The most striking feature was that the treehouse was pop-marked with many LED lights like a Christmas tree.

There were many flashlights rooted into the treehouse, each pointing in a random direction around the clearing. Worklights powered by smurfmobile batteries littered the area around the tree house, one of which was toppled over by something. All of the lights were on to their maximum level, shining brightly as possible.

The Smurflings looked out the window and saw Cherskey and Nelly up in the tree house, the looks on their faces show disbelief. "The manuscript page says you call out to them Sassette." noted Snappy.

"Oh, okay." said Sassette.

She climbed into out of the back seats of the smurfvee where she opened the passenger side door, "Come on!" she yelled out, "Get inside, quick!"

"Park the smurfvee underneath the light." called out Cherskey.

He turned on a switch and an overhead lamp sticking out underneath the platform came on, focusing all of its light into a single area. Sassette closed the door as Snappy parked the smurfvee underneath the safe haven of light, as he does so the flight flickered and burned out. "Get out," said Snappy as he shuts off the engine, "Turn on your flashlights and get out, now!"

The Smurflings turned on their flashlights and got out out of the smurfvee as Snappy left the head and roof lights on, "You pick one hell of a time to find us!" snarled Cherskey as the shadows and wind began to shift again, "We'll talk later, just defend this position. Use the worklights and flares to your advantage!"

"Here!" said Nelly as she dropped a box of flares to the ground.

When it landed on the ground, the Smurflings grabbed a few flares, "Can one of you smurfs set that downed worklight back up?" asked Nelly.

"Sure!" called out Sassette.

Sassette ran to the downed worklight and repositions it right side up again, she looked into the darkness beyond and saw a couple of shadowy humanoid figures walking towards her, "Going by the river smurf today!" one of them said in a monstrous voice.

"Taken!" cried Sassette as she aimed the worklights at the Taken, the lights held back the Taken as it burns away its cocoon of shadows.

"There's more of them over here!" announced Snappy.

"You gotta work as a team if you're going to live to see the sun again!" advised Cherskey, "We'll do our best to help you guys, just fight them as long as they keep coming!"

Within seconds, the clearing was filled with Taken from the Smurf Village, some blurted out garbled gibberish that the Smurflings could not understand. Regardless, they went straight into battle. Since Snappy and Sassette were the only smurflings with guns, they have to take the brunt of the fight. Cherskey and Nelly were safe in their tree house, four overhead lamps bathe the entire balcony. They were in the safe haven of light, the Taken cannot touch them. They'll provide some cover from the high ground with SIRs, but with a limited range since the protective light hindered their vision.

The flashlights that randomly pointed out into the clearing helped nibble away at the Taken's dark shroud when they come walking by it, so they provide some help to the Smurflings. Snappy and Sassette does his best to keep paste on gunning down the Taken who had their darkness burned away, as Nat and Slouchy tried to stun the Taken with their flashlights. The twins above helped take pot-shots at the unprotected Taken when they get close enough, the teamwork they showed was phenomenal.

"Like that!" cursed Cherskey at the Taken, "I bet that hurts, don't it!"

"There's more of them coming from the south!" cried Nelly.

Indeed, more Taken came walking out of the woods. They all tried to outflank the Smurflings as they struggle to hold them back, it was easy since they back off once a focused beam of light was shined on them, but that was all about to change. "I go for a jog... AROUND THE SMURF VILLAGE... every morning," said a maniac and distorted voice, "It helps get my... blood pumping before I START THE DAY!"

A Taken came walking out of the forrest carrying a double-bladed ax, it had more shadows covering its body than the other Taken. Looking closely, Slouchy could see a faint heart-with-arrow tattoo on the smurf's upper right arm. "It's Hefty!" he announced.

"I get jeaaalouss... when anysmurf is INTERESTED in SmurfETTE!" he blurted as he marched towards the Smurflings with the ax up high, "I won't let ANYSMURF touch her!"

Snappy shined his flashlight into Hefty's face, he shields the light from his eyes with his arm. Unlike the other smurf Taken, Hefty continues walking, unhindered by the light of the flashlight. Snappy tried shooting Hefty with his gun, the bullets bounced off of him without harm. It did, however, enraged Hefty as he let out a loud roar from the top of his lungs before come charging head on towards Snappy in full speed, ready to clobber him like the punching bags he used to beat up.

With sharp reflexes, Snappy jumped out of the way as Hefty swung the ax at him like a golf club. Instead of hitting the smurfling, he created a huge gouge in the dirt with immense strength. "Let me at 'em!" he gibbered, "LET ME AT 'EM!"

"Even as a Taken, Hefty is still tough." comment Sassette.

"Use the flares you dumbasses!" cursed Cherskey.

Snappy pulled out a flare and twisted it, he held it over his head like a torch as it gave off a bright green sparkle of light. The light was so immense that it repelled Hefty awhile stripping away his darkness faster than the flashlight can. "Try Nordic WALKING!" blabbered Hefty, "Proven... health benefits!"

Sassette came to Snappy's aid as she attacked the other Taken who was trying to attack him, Nat and Slouchy kept a trained light on Hefty as Snappy's flare died out. "Gimmie something TO BEND!" he roared as he came charging at the Smurflings again.

They also managed to dodge it a second time and Hefty wound up lodging the ax into the trunk of the treehouse when he tried to swing it at Nat, Hefty took a moment to attempt to remove the ax from the tree. Eventually, he managed to get it removed by the time his dark shroud was finally burned away. Snappy and Sassette proceed to gun him down, it took more rounds to bring Hefty down than the other Taken. A shot to the head finally caused Hefty to disintegrate into light before vanishing from the face of the earth.

"Look out Slouchy!" cried Nat.

A Taken came up from behind with a hatchet and sickle, Slouchy turned awhile the Taken nicked him in the tail with the curved blade. He didn't noticed, the heat of the moment kept him focused on the Taken. Slouchy stunned the Taken with his flashlight as its dark shroud flashed and disassembled itself, as the Taken gripped its eyes Snappy shot it until it died.

"Thanks." said Slouchy.

A couple more Taken was now all that's left, one of them threw a hatchet at the Smurflings which embedded itself in the trunk of the treehouse. The other one also threw a hatchet which nearly hits Snappy in the head, it flew past and landed in the mud behind him. Before the Smurflings were able to attack them, a small metal cylinder-shape object appeared and landed at the feet of the Taken and explodes. It gave off a loud bang and a flash of white light, so bright that everything went white.

It took a few seconds for the Smurflings vision to restore and the ringing in their ear to subside, by the time they came too they saw that the Taken were now gone.

"You guys just stood there like derps!" laughed Nelly, "I'm not going to forget that moment, ever!"

All the smurflings waited for a minute or two for more Taken to arrive, the forest nonetheless remained quite and no more of the poor soulless beasts showed up. "I think its safe now." said Snappy.

At that moment, the overhead lamp above the smurfvee flickered back on as Cherskey tossed down a rope latter from the balcony, "Get up here," barked Cherskey, "I'm not going to bury you if you decide to catch an ax with your forehead!"

**TO BE CONTINUED...**

_The Dark Presence had control of most of the inhabitants of the Smurf Village, but its job was not yet complete. It needed the Smurflings in order to call it a win, however it used up a lot of its energy possessing all the smurfs in the village and cannot possess the Smurflings like it did to the adults. Rather than coming after the Smurflings directly, why not have someone else do the job for you?_

_It had made the smurfs its puppets, the Taken, so sending them after the Smurflings' lives is the best economical choice it can perform at the moment. By the time the Smurflings reached the Green Smurf Colony, it had renewed strength to possess more creatures. It couldn't get its army of blue smurf Taken over there at once, nor did it want to. The green smurfs though might be a better alternative to use as minions, they're far stronger and more aggressive than their pure counterparts, and there's more of them as well. Once the window of opportunity opens, even if its just a crack, it will seize the moment to acquire more soldiers._

_Unlike the sky blue smurfs who were bred for peace, the grass green smurfs were bred for war._


	8. Chapter 8

**Disclaimer: I do not own any characters that were created by someone else**

**Claimer: Go to my profile to view my characters**

The Smurflings climbed up the rope latter and climbed onto the balcony of the treehouse, Cherskey lend them a hand and helped them up one by one to their feet. In the brightness of the outdoor lamps that lit up the balcony, the Smurflings feel safe.

When the Smurflings walked inside the tree house, they saw 5 bright LED lights on the ceiling, four on each corner and one in the center. The place littered with lanvished supplies of flashlights, batteries, flares, firearm ammo, LED light bulbs, and food products. There was a small desk and a plush couch at the far back of the room, the twins had everything they need to get through the night.

"Its great to see you guys," said Cherskey as he sat his rifle up against the wall, "I feel better now since we're no longer alone in this nightmare."

"I knew you guys would make it." said Snappy.

"You did?" asked Nelly.

"Cause that's how the story goes," Snappy pulled out the manuscript page detailing the moment they rescued the twins and handed it to Cherskey, "See."

Cherskey read the manuscript page to himself, word for word, his expression didn't changed when he handed the page back. "So we're trapped in a story again," said Cherskey, "I figured we would be, just like last time in all. But this time, we're the protagonists."

"Yup." said Snappy.

"Well let's hope its a great read," said Nelly, "It might become a book some day."

"It is a great read," said Cherskey, "Just look how close we came to dying, it's crafted for the reader's amusement, nothing more."

"Does that explain the pages we keep finding?" asked Nelly.

"You found pages?" asked Snappy.

"We did find a few pages," said Cherskey, "We kept finding them in our path, so far we found seven."

"That's more pages than we've found." said Sassette.

"How many?" asked Nelly.

"Six." said Nat.

"So that makes 13," said Sassette, "How many pages should there be anyway?"

"About a hundred," said Cherskey, "Thats what my dead said at least."

"If there's a hundred pages," said Slouchy, "Then we might have missed some."

"Who's trailing blood on the floor?" asked Nelly.

The Smurflings look down and saw blotches of blood on the wooden floor, the perfect circles of red were small so the bleeding was not that bad. It just so happened that the blood clustered behind Slouchy, revealing the nick on the tail the Taken had made earlier.

"Oh smurf," crooned Slouchy as he examined his tail, he saw it slowly drip blood onto the floor, "I didn't noticed."

"At least you're being cool-headed about it and not in a state of shock," contemplated Cherskey, "I'll get the bandages."

Cherskey grabbed a roll of gauze and a bottle of alcohol as Slouchy positions himself, "I'm surprised you didn't get any blood on your pants," said Nelly, "Another reason on why not to wear white."

Cherskey poured the alcohol over Slouchy's tail, he yelped by the stink of the alcohol making contact with the wound. Furthermore Cherskey wrapped the gauze around the tail, making sure its not too tight. Once done, Cherskey cuts the gauze and puts the roll and alcohol away.

"I find it strange that neither of you smurfs gasped or show pity," said Cherskey, "So, what happened to you all the other night?"

Normally the Smurflings would show such emotions, but they didn't. Instead they just stared in silence as Cherskey patched Slouchy's tail up. The horror that the Smurflings endured with the combination of Slouchy getting a bad bruise from Handy mentally immunized the Smurflings from the usual fears.

"We've seen worse." said Snappy.

"Welcome to the green smurf's world." grunted Cherskey.

"Were you there when the Dark Presence attacked the Smurf Village?" asked Sassette.

"Cherskey and Nelly sat down on a plush couch and sat back, "Were you?" asked the twins in unison.

"We were sleeping," said Snappy.

The whole room went silent as the Smurflings stared at each other, none said a word for a full minute.

"It started with an earthquake," said Cherskey, "It shook the land with a moderate vibration, but that wasn't what woke the village up, it was the mournful cry of the Dark Presence. There's no doubt that roar was an eagle, we knew what it was. Hearing it triggered flashbacks of nightmares that had been long since buried, nightmares that the Dark Presence gave them. What came to their little minds was pitch-black darkness, you should have seen the fear that was expressed in their eyes."

"Was this in a manuscript?" asked Slouchy.

"Yup," said Nelly, "Never thought of it much, until now."

"The smurfs got up and searched around the village, looking for signs of the Dark Presence," continued Cherskey, "They searched it twice, just to make sure, that was how scared they were. Our mama left us to go check on her mama, she never came back by the time the Dark Presence came in with full force."

"It took all the smurfs," said Nelly, "Gobbled then whole with snakes of darkness, the shadows was so strong that..."

Nelly's voice trailed away, "Its okay Nelly," reassured Cherskey as he placed his arm around her shoulders.

"That dad didn't make it." finished Nelly.

"Just what the manuscript page said would happen." said Snappy.

"Yes," said Cherskey, "Once we realized all was lost, we grabbed our survival packs and ran out of there like there's no tomorrow. After heading a few kilometers, we settled up here, everything you see here was salvaged from a green smurf outpost that seemed to be abandoned recently. There were two gaping holes in the barracks and a lot of blood in one corner, but no bodies whatsoever."

"We've been there," said Sassette, "The Dark Presence attacked Brainy and made him a Taken."

"Ah, Brainy always thinks for himself," said Cherskey, "Green smurfs understand him best since they also think for themselves, smart thing he got outta there when he got the chance, too bad he can't avoid fate."

"I have to ask," said Slouchy, "How did you power all these lights?"

"Batteries, wind turbine, and a solar panel," said Cherskey, "We even have a generator to keep the batteries charge when renewable energy isn't enough."

"You seem to have everything you need to get through the night," said Snappy as he push aside some battery packs, "How long can you get by until you need to resupply?"

"About a few days," said Nelly, "The Dark Presence is growing stronger, this Christmas tree of ours will not keep us safe forever. I know it might be ironic but it would be safer if we get to the Green Smurf Colony, plenty of green smurfs to protect us."

"There could be a drawback Nelly," said Cherskey, "If the Dark Presence attacks the Colony, it will might enslaved some green smurfs and send them against us."

"I thought of that," said Nelly, "Which means we're going to need more powerful weapons."

"Now you're talking sissy!" said Cherskey as he used his arm to press her hard against himself, she cracked a silly smile in response.

Cherskey got up and rummage around the pile of crap the had lying around, after a moment he pulled out a Heavy-Duty hand-held spotlight. It had a metal casing like all other flashlights, it was one of the most well built flashlight the green smurfs had in their arsenal. When he turned it on, it gave off a powerful beam that could easily blind a smurf. "They might be cumbersome but they will make things easier for us," he said, "The battery will last a long time, you can be sure of it."

"I don't wanna go back right away," said Sassette, "Its night, I am tired and I-"

"It's just 9PM," interupted Cherskey, "You know what, let's go back to the Green Smurf Colony right now, you smurfs get the smurfvee ready awhile I lock things up. Its just in case we need to come back you know, either the colony gets overruned or something bad happens."

"Why at night?" asked Snappy.

"You want to sleep peacefully tonight then this is your best bet," said Cherskey, "I haven't slept since last night, neither did Nelly, these artificial lights you see here kept us awake and alert the whole time. Things got worse when those taken arrived, he had to fight them off for an hour until you arrived. I say we might not even make it if you smurfs hadn't showed to hold the ground below, we honestly thought this was going to be our final stand."

"Your welcome." said Snappy.

**TO BE CONTINUED...**

_To save the amount of smurf servants the Dark Presence had enslaved, it pulled off an ingenious trick. The darkness linked all the blue smurfs to Papa Smurf and all the green smurfs to Chernov, so every time a Taken was killed it respawns near their designated sub-host. It makes sense due to the fact that there weren't very many smurfs out there to begin with, just a hundred blue smurfs and a thousand green smurfs. _

_To the Dark Presence, it felt appropriate to link the Taken to their former leaders since they had served them in their previous lives. The good thing about it was the Dark Presence respects the smurfs, it wouldn't be free without them._


	9. Chapter 9

**Disclaimer: I do not own any characters that were created by someone else**

**Claimer: Go to my profile to view my characters**

The Smurflings load up the smurfvee with supplies from the treehouse as Cherskey and Nelly keep watch for more Taken, the trunk had more than enough equipment that it became full by the time they finished packing. Once done, Cherskey switched off the lights before he and Nelly joined the Smurflings in the smurfvee. Since it was cramped, the twins had to squeeze themselves a spot between Nat and Slouchy.

Nelly discreetly placed her arm around Slouchy's shoulders and pulled him closer to her, he didn't know what to do in this kind of situation where the girl was invading the personal space of the boy. "You had a cute tail," Nelly said softly, "Its a shame something happened to it."

"Um, thanks." said Slouchy with uncertainty and doubt.

"She just want someone to cuddle with Slouchy," warned Cherskey, "So don't listen to her."

Nelly took her fist and smashed it against Cherskey's groin, he grunted from the blow as his gonads cry in pain. In response, Cherskey hit Nelly back in the stomach, causing her to feel a similar painful stimulis. Nelly lets go of Slouchy and she and Cherskey began rustling with each other, as many siblings their age occasionally do.

"What are they doing?" whispered Sassette.

"I don't know," said Snappy, "Must be a green smurf thing."

Eventually they calmed down and wrapped their arms around each other with affection, "I love you." said Nelly.

"I love you too sissy." said Cherskey.

"Are you two smurfs done?" asked Snappy as he looked at them through the rear-view mirror.

"Yes." said the twins in unison.

Snappy started up the engine and the Smurflings drove off. It took awhile for Snappy to find the smurf trail leading to both the colony and their village, once he found it Snappy drove down the road towards the Green Smurf Colony. Along the way, the Smurflings encountered a couple of Taken standing in the middle of the road. The headlights of the smurfvee burned off the Taken's dark shrouds off their bodies, "Run them over," advised Cherskey, "Just like before."

Reluctantly, Snappy floored the gas pedal and the smurfvee picked up speed. Sassette tried not to scream as the Taken was ran over with a single blow from the vehicle, they burst into light upon impact before vanishing in yellow sparkles. The Smurflings didn't feel the smurfvee jolt much when they ran them over, that was how powerful the smurfvee was when it came head on towards them.

"Thataway to do it!" cheered Nelly, "Nothing left of them now!"

"Yup," said Snappy in dismay, "Nothing left..."

"Whats wrong Snappy?" asked Nelly.

"Its just," said Snappy, trying to put his thoughts together, "Its just that these Taken were once the smurfs we knew and love, now they're gone, nothing left of them execpt empty husks filled with darkness and dead-nerve twitches."

"Don't view them who they once were," advised Cherskey, "View them what they are now, the Dark Presence has the advantage of using your own loved ones against you."

"Isn't that ironic," said Nelly, "Lets see those pages Cherskey, I wanna see if there's more to our situation that might be useful."

Cherskey opened his backpack and pulled out tattered manuscript pages they had collected. Some of the pages were smeared with nutrient-rich mud, the rest of them were crumpled from handling or were smoothed out after being crumpled. "When we reach safety," said Cherskey, "I'm going to clean off these pages and iron them to remove most of the wrinkles, making them more presentable again."

"We gotta protect the pages," said Nelly, "Every single one of them."

"The pages we gathered is in my backpack," said Snappy, "In the folder, the manuscript pages are there."

Cherskey picked up Snappy's backpack and opened it, "It looks like your pages were fresh out of the typewriter," he contemplated as he pulled them all out, "We've been finding ours in the mud or stuffed into crap. Oh look, you have the cover. Children Of The Elder Smurfs, seems to be an appropriate title for having smurflings as protagonists, don't you agree?"

"Yes," said Nat, "I agree."

The twins examined each manuscript page for the rest of the way to the colony, Snappy turned on the radio and heard Rick's voice on it, he was doing one of his news times again. "Your host Richard Reznov here," said Rick, "I know I haven't been on for awhile but I had personal stuff to take care of, I apologize for my absence so I'm going to make this quick. Chernov, Rachael, and their two children are missing."

"Only my mom is missing." grumbled Rick.

"As you may know, the Smurf Village had been attacked by some malevolent force," continued Rick, "There were a lot of blood, but not a single body had been found. Our beloved biological mother was..." he paused for a moment to give it suspense, "Sadly confirmed fallen, the only survivors of that attack were four smurflings who had happened to risk their lives to reach the safety of our colony. They spoke of the forest waking up and attacked all the smurfs, this force that attacked the village was described as shadows of darkness. It seems that the Dark Presence has woken up, again."

"The Smurflings had gathered a crap load of supplies lately, mostly flashlights and guns. They recently drove out of here in a hurry, they're up to something, whatever that is might decide the future of our colony. With our military leader, Chernov, out of the picture, we're going to have to handle this on our own. Due to the threat of an attack at night, the DEFCON level has been set from 5 to 3. This Dark Presence can only be harmed with light so make sure you have a powerful flashlight with fresh batteries on hand and a gun, it is recommended that you sleep with the lights on tonight. This is Richard Reznov, and signing out."

Snappy turned off the radio as they approached the Green Smurf Colony, he slowed down as he drove into the colony and back to the Command Center. "The Green Smurf Colony," said Cherskey, "Were me and Nelly were conceived."

"What?" asked Sassette.

"You don't wanna know." said Nelly.

The Smurflings parked the smurfvee next to the Command Center and got out, they grabbed their backpacks as Cherskey tucked the manuscript pages back into the folder, "Thanks again for the rescue guys," he said, "Now I'll have to come up with a story for Rick when he ask where I've been during this time."

"Your welcome Cherskey." said Snappy.

"And I never get a say?" asked Nelly.

"You too Nelly." said Snappy.

When the Smurflings went inside the Command Center, they discovered that it was empty. Odd, Rick made his radio announcement earlier. Snappy was still stemming from the fact that he told the green smurfs from what happened to Smurfette, when word spreads something is going to give. Right now, the Smurflings only cared about rest. Cherskey on the other hand was willing to fix the manuscript pages, so he got out the ironing board tucked away behind the CRT computers and plugged in an electric iron.

He took only the ruined pages and scrape most of the mud off of them, then he ironed the pages one by one. The rest of the smurflings took time to relax as they sat on the floor against the wall, Nelly slept on Rick and Dashie's cot where she managed to get some needed sleep. "You should get some sleep Cherskey," said Snappy, "You look really tired."

"I've been tired since the damn ghost showed up," grumbled Cherskey, "Me and Nelly were tired, a rude awakening in that fateful night combined with the loss of our dad didn't sit well for us. I've been having mood swings awhile Nelly was having emotional breakdowns, we were paranoid from the thought that if we sleep we get killed. We have major problems when sleeping with the light on, it keeps us awake."

Cherskey finished ironing the last page and examined it for wrinkles, seeing that he got most of it out he placed it back into the folder of manuscript pages and closed it up. "The better condition of these pages," said Cherskey, "The better the chance we'll might have this nightmare well documented."

He handed the manuscript back to Snappy, "I trust you with it," said Cherskey, "Even if there's a chance its my father's work, your the self-proclaimed leader of the Smurflings so you'll be the first to go into certain situations."

"Thanks," said Snappy as he puts the manuscript back into his backpack, "I appreciate it."

Cherskey walked over to Nelly and laid down beside her, he wrapped his arms around her waist as if she was a stuffed animal, he does his best to fall asleep. The other smurflings watched as Cherskey and Nelly shifts around in the cot for half an hour before their snorings signalled they had fell asleep. "How about that," said Snappy, "They snore still."

They recall the times that the twins slept in their club house with them, their snoring kept them up all night each time they sleep with them. The Smurflings never usually complain, but it usually got in Snappy's nerves. Nelly snores the loudest, when synched with Cherskey's snoring it was too much of a nuisance to bare.

"Why do they snore?" complained Sassette, "Ughh."

A loud bang occurred outside, waking the twins from their slumber, Nelly yelped from being startled by the noise as Cherskey shift around in confusion, his mind in a fog of dream fragments. "What was that!" Nelly screamed in sheer shock.

"It sounded like a gunshot," stirred Cherskey, who was now coming to his senses, "Oh, this is what we need, something to wake us all up right after we managed to finally sleep for once!"

The Smurflings began to hear activity and voices coming from outside, strange, there wasn't suppose to be anything happening late at night. "What's going on?" asked Slouchy.

"I don't know," said Cherskey as he got up to his feet and helped up Nelly, "But it ain't good, I can feel it."

Snappy puts on his backpack awhile the twins put on theirs, the other smurflings grumbled and got ready. If the Dark Presence were to be attacking at this hour, they cannot to go out without the needed commodities. Once the Smurflings were ready, they head outside to see what was really happening. They saw several smurfvees blocking the roads with armed green smurfs taking cover behind them. Other green smurfs were also armed and were pointing their rifles at the Smurflings, they trained a searchlight at them due to the immense darkness of the night.

"Not good." said Cherskey, the feeling of being imprisoned sinking in.

Dashie came walking up madly as she pointed a pistol at the Smurflings, they can smell the odor of alcohol coming off of her body, even though she wasn't within reach of the Smurflings yet. "You brats get your hands where I can see them!" she ordered as she pulled the primer of her gun back, "You're under arrest for Smurfette's murder! You make any sudden moves and I'll pup you full of lead and use you as a paperweight, you hear me Lil' Einsteins!"

From the corner of Snappy's eye, he saw another of the flashbange grenades came flying into view. It was thrown from behind him instead from the sky, it landed next to Dashie without her noticing. The grenade went off, stunning Dashie visually and auditory. Awhile she was distracted, Snappy made a break for it, all the other Smurflings saw him took off and quickly followed him. Dashie quickly saw them escaping, and in turn began shooting at them.

The bullets came nowhere close of the Smurflings, but it did hit one of the tires of their smurfvee, deflating it. With their vehicle disabled, the Smurflings were forced to escape on foot, not an easy task when dealing with a species who loves chasing their pray.

"Shoot them you bastards!" cursed Dashie on the top of her lungs, "Don't let them get away!"

"They're just kids Dashie!" a green smurf cried with sympathy, "Those green smurflings with them are Chernov's kids for crying out loud!"

"I don't give a damn!" snarled Dashie, "Shoot the motherf#ckers, kill them if you have too!"

The Smurflings ran off into the woods as many flashlight beams were pointed near them, searching for them. For once in the nightmare, they must avoid the light or be caught in it.

"Who threw that flashbang grenade?" asked Nelly.

"Me," said Cherskey, cracking a smile of pride, "I never liked that bitch anyway."

The twins high-five in congratulation, that's all they had time for as the green smurfs were literally right behind their tails.

**TO BE CONTINUED...**

_The Dark Smurfette thought that using sexual themes would maintain control of Chernov, keep him in her grasp. It made sense to her, Chernov was quite young, testosterone levels should be high for his age. She learned the hard way however as Chernov was in no mood for any kind of sexual moves, it only enraged him, made him more resistant under her spell. He's still willing to type for her, to write the story it wanted. Little does she know, she was using a double-edged sword._


	10. Chapter 10

**Disclaimer: I do not own any characters that were created by someone else**

**Claimer: Go to my profile to view my characters**

"Where are they?" called out a green smurf.

"They can't be far." said another.

The Smurflings fought through the vegetation as they head deeper into the forest, they wonder why was Dashie accusing them for murdering Smurfette. It was Handy who killed her, not the Smurflings. They can't prove it though, cause Handy was long gone and so was his body. Even if they can, there wasn't anything the Smurflings could do since Handy wasn't Handy anymore.

As human tradition goes, those who are accused of murder is sentenced to death, even if they are innocent. This was do to the fact that there was no law and order in the Green Smurf Colony, with Chernov gone, there was no longer fair law. The green smurfs now run amok as they embrace pure anarchy.

"Into the ditch!" cried Cherskey.

They approached a large drainage ditch up ahead, it was dark and very deep. The Smurflings would have stop there and try to go around, but seeing Cherskey jumping into the ditch caused them to follow suit. Falling down the deep trench felt like forever, until they hit the bottom. They grunt when they impacted against the ground, in loud thuds. It would have hurt, but this was serious times and the nerves didn't bother to respond to the stimulus.

The Smurflings managed to get up to their feet, surprisingly unharmed. They were about to complain to Cherskey about jumping into the ditch when they heard the green smurfs closing in from above. It sounded like multiple green smurfs were talking to each other, both male and female.

"I saw them over here!" cried a green smurf.

"Where is here!" cried another.

"I don't know! I saw them here, on the edge of the trench, I know it!"

"Keep searching Someone check the trench A S A P!"

"That trench appears dark, no way the Smurflings would-"

"Just shut up and search it anyway!"

The green smurfs shined their flashlights down into the large ditch, but the Smurflings were already past that area.

They reached one of the ends of the ditch and climbed out of it using the exposed roots of an oak tree, once out of the trench they discovered more green smurfs up ahead. It just so happened that the Smurflings stumbled into a trail and their were armed green smurfs walking down it, they also had a smurfvee equipped with a 3 mm gattling gun. "Get down!" whispered Snappy.

The Smurflings jump onto their bellies and hid behind the bushes as the light from the green smurfs reached the part of the road where they were. They held their breath as the green smurfs were passing by. "Where are those rascals?" asked a green smurfette, "They could be around here somewhere."

"I don't know," said another green smurf, "I don't think they did it though, they're just too close to Smurfette. I wonder who gave Dashie command of us, such a whore."

Suddenly the winds began to pick up, the Smurflings hold onto each other as they heard a loud roar coming from the other side of the roads. "What was that!" cried a green smurf.

Another loud mournful roar caused the green smurfs to open fire at whoever made it, "What is that thing!" cried a green smurf.

"Shoot it, kill it!" cried a green smurfette.

Cherskey placed his hand over Nelly's mouth as he held onto her from behind, the green smurfs screamed for their life, the blood-curdling noise just a few centimeters up close to them made the Smurflings wanna scream themselves. It went on for a few seconds before the screaming stopped and the winds died down, just when the Smurflings think its all over the smurfvee came flying into the air and landed right before the Smurflings. It rolled once before it rested on its wheels, the bulbs of its headlights flickered before exploding.

As Cherskey slowly removed his hand from Nelly's mouth, she whimpered, "I want mama!"

Sassette was just as terrified, more terrified than Nelly. The reason she didn't cry is that her sister was gone, no one to go to for love and a needed hug. She held in her screams and kept them down, Sassette couldn't afford to be weak at the moment.

"Is everyone okay?" asked Snappy.

"Yeah," said Cherskey, "Check the smurfvee."

The Smurflings got up and approached the steaming wreck of the smurfvee, since it was an electric engine and not an internal combustion one there was no leaking fluids to worry about. Cherskey opened the car door and looked inside, there was no one sitting in the seats at all, it was devoid of occupants. The radio crackled, and Dashie's voice came screaming out of the smurfvee's surround system.

"What the hell are you dumbsh#ts!" cried Dashie.

"Copy." said Rick's voice.

Cherskey turned to rest of the smurflings and waves them over to come here, they all crowd around him as they overhear the conversation on the radio. "What's going on Ricky?" asked Dashie, "I've lost contact with many of the green smurfs, do you know what happened?"

"The lights went out," said Rick, "All the flashlights, all the lamps, everything and anything that produces light went out, we're dealing with the paranormal here!"

"We're chasing the Smurflings Rick! Not a ghost!"

"This isn't a lost soul we're dealing with Dashie, we're dealing with something more. Just stay where you are, I'm going to go find you. Over and out!"

With the conversation over, Cherskey began to search the smurfvee for anything useful. Nelly helped out and the two managed to find a rifle in the trunk, "This will might help us." said Cherskey.

"Get out your flashlights guys," said Snappy, "We're going to have a hard fight on our hands."

The Smurflings got out their flashlights as the twins pulled out their hand-held spotlights out of their hands, they turned them on and head out to the road. They saw guns and flashlights scattered everywhere, there were no signs of the green smurfs nor blood was present. Snappy picked up a discarded flashlight and examined it, it appeared fine but when he turned it on the lightbulb didn't lit up. He looked at the lightbulb and saw it was broken, now he understood why the flashlight wasn't working.

"Get these flashlights and pull the batteries out of them," said Sassette, "We'll might need them later on."

The Smurflings began to pick up the flashlights and pulled the batteries out of them, they managed to get a decent amount of batteries from the defective flashlights. By the time they finished, they put all the flashlights in the smurfvee and moved on to examine the weapons. "I hope you smurflings know how to use a Standard Infantry Rifle," said Cherskey, "Cause we're going to encounter such a fight soon."

They each picked up an SIR from the ground, there were so many of them that all the Smurflings got a gun. Good thing too, they heard the bushes shifts its leaves nearby.

Before the Smurflings even knew it, the Taken appeared out of the bushes. This time they were green smurf Taken, they had more shadows protecting them and were armed with diamond-edged axes with carbon fiber handles. There were also female Taken, armed with diamond-edged sickles and hammers in each hand. These tools were a lot more stronger than the blue smurfs' and can cause more damage. "You have the right to remain silent!" one of them echoed, "Do you understand these rights?"

"Oh crap!" cursed Cherskey.

The Smurflings shined their flashlights at the Taken, instead of backing off they marched towards the Smurflings with commitment. A couple of the males go into a berserker rage and charged at some of the smurflings, nearly hitting them to the moon with their axes. When the Taken's shroud of darkness was removed, they fired their weapons into them and they burst into static. The battle went on for a few minutes until the last of the Taken were killed.

"Even when they're Taken, they're still willing to go after us." said Nelly.

"Where should we go?" asked Nat, "We can't go back home, there's no home to go back too."

The Smurflings stood there and thought for a moment, crickets of the night chirped around them as a nearby howl hooted a mating call. "I felt exiled," said Cherskey, "With the Green Smurf Colony after us, I'm all out of options here on out."

"There is one option we could try Cherskey," said Nelly, "The emergency bunkers the green smurfs had built."

"That could be a good place to get caught in." said Snappy.

"True," said Cherskey, "But its better than spending the night out in the open."

"I wanna sleep in a bed for once." said Sassette, her eyes getting droopy.

"I'm going with you on this Nelly," said Slouchy, "Its better than nothing."

"Then its agreed," said Snappy, "We get inside a fallout shelter and use it as our base."

"I just happen to know the location of all of the emergency shelters," said Cherksey, "I managed to memorize a map that marks their exact locations, I think the nearest one is a bit of a lengthy walk away."

"Where?" asked Nat.

"Down this road away from the Green Smurf Colony," said Cherskey, "Follow me."

The Smurflings followed Cherskey down the dirt road, as they walked they turned around and looked back to make sure no one was following them. Anxious as they were, the thought of the Taken ambushing them from anywhere was nerve-racking enough. Seeing them take shape out of thin air was a whole different story, the winds and shadows began to move again and the Smurflings expect the worse.

Right up ahead they saw the shadows clump together and formed the Taken, their were three of them and all of them were armed with axes. Interestingly enough, they're just only going to be encountering green smurf Taken for tonight. As the Taken spoke gibberish, the Smurflings aimed their flashlight at them as the Taken tried to get them with their weapons. Once the shadows flashed off their bodies, the Smurflings gunned them down outright.

By now the Smurflings were tired, they could barely stay on their feet. Cherskey was the one who needed the most sleep, and he needs a lot of it. For Nelly, she thinks that the only way to end the nightmare for the night was to go to bed. Snappy thought of a toasty fire and a cup of hot chocolate, it was indeed cold tonight but the adrenaline kept him warm. The night became surreal to the Smurflings, it began to feel like a dream to them.

They imagined that they were asleep and were trying their best to wake up, being sleep-deprived made them stir-crazy, they couldn't think straight.

Reality and imagination was one in the story they're trapped in, either the works of art from Chernov or really an anonymous person. The manuscript pages they kept finding, maybe typed out from a typewriter or from a terminal. They tell what was happening, the Smurflings wished they can also give them much needed hope, the only thing the pages give them was a moment out of the nightmare.

With the fresh night air keeping the Smurflings awake, they remained focused, all they could do is keep going.

"Not that far now guys," said Cherskey, "We gotta turn up this hill."

The Smurflings turned and found themselves about to go up a hill, a wooden door attached to a wooden wall blocks their way. They could see an LED glowing behind it, it felt reassuring... and wrong somehow.

Something stirred and a tree behind the palisade toppled over, the LED lightbulb explodes and darkens. "Something is behind there," said Cherskey, "Watch your back, there could be more Taken coming in from behind."

"What's up there anyway?" asked Snappy, "I'm not talking about who's up there but what is up there?"

"Could be a logging site," said Nelly, "Green smurfs like to log."

"The Taken should use their axes for wood then." said Snappy.

Slouchy turned around and looked back the way they came, he could see a Taken running across the road and hopping behind a bush. "I think they have us surrounded." said Slouchy.

"Logging is a hazardous occupation!" roared a booming demonic voice that was coming from the top of the hill.

The Smurflings heard a loud chainsaw as the wooden door on the top of the hill was kicked down, a Taken, an obese green smurf whose covered with the mother of all shadows of darkness, came marching out. It was wielding the most massive chainsaw the Smurflings had ever seen, the Taken roared it wildly before it began marching after them. As it nonchalantly walks towards the Smurflings, the other Taken ambushed them. Cherskey pulled out a flare and twisted it, he held it above his head like a torch and repelled the opposing Taken, giving the other Smurflings time to react.

"Don't let that Taken touch you with its chainsaw," warned Nelly, "Its teeth are diamond coated, it can rip through solid rock!"

"Thank you for the useful information!" said Snappy sarcastically.

"Where did he get a chainsaw anyway?" asked Nat.

"He was a logger you dipsh#t!" cursed Cherskey, "Green smurfs always give the chainsaw to a green smurf or green smurfette with the massive pot-belly."

"Why?" asked Slouchy.

"Its appropriate." Cherskey simply say.

After taking out some of the Taken, the chainsaw-wielding Taken came near and tried to chainsaw Nat in half. He managed to dodge it in time as the chainsaw came down and plow itself into the mud, the Taken pulled it out and tried to swing it at Slouchy but he slipped away without much effort. With the other Taken gone, the Smurflings trained all their flashlights at big one, even stunning it by shining the lights into its eyes.

It took a long time before the Taken's thick shadows finally burned away completely and the Smurflings proceed to take it down with their SIRs, it took a lot of shot to bring the beast down. Once it dissolves into light along with its chainsaw, it disappeared without a trace.

"Move up the hill!" called out Cherskey.

The Smurflings ran up the hill and found the logging site in question, it appeared ransacked, the Dark Presence had been here alright. Machinery was tossed aside like toys and equipment was scattered everywhere, it was completely abandoned.

As the Smurflings walked through the logging site, a manuscript page posted on the nearby wall caught Snappy's eye. He rushed towards it, grabbed it, and returned to his friends before reading it out loud.

_The darkness crept around me like spiders, encasing me in a cocoon made by their own silk produced by the excretion glands in the rears. It wanted the story where it took over everything, the smurfs, the animals, the forest, even the humans. I hated her, the witch. I try to eradicate the image of her exposing herself to me, I can stand sex themes no more. _

_I'm creating a nightmare, my nightmare, the genre of the story is horror. The scenarios its playing will lead the demise of many of my friends... and loved ones. _

_You know what, I'm going to trick the Dark Presence into a nightmare of its own. I'm going to modify the story in a way in which it could not escape from, put in various scenes where it was close to the protagonist by the ass-hairs before letting it slip away. As powerful as the darkness was, there is a way to fight back. The protagonist needs something to hope for, a goal to find, they need to find the Lady of the Light. _

_I know exactly who will fit that role perfectly._

"The Lady of the Light?" asked Cherskey, "What does he mean by-"

An engine roared as the ground vibrate from the repeated pounding of treads, "You gotta be kidding me!" cried Snappy as he saw a bulldozer possessed by the Dark Presence coming after them in full speed.

The Smurflings split up and trained their flashlights on the machine, it tried its best to run over the Smurflings with its shovel. It keeps backing up and repositioning itself just to run over one smurfling, by the time it does so the Smurfling was no longer where it wanted to be. The trick was to stay by the side of the bulldozer, don't let it get catch you in front or behind it. The mobility problem was clear to see, so the bulldozer pulled away, looped around, and came charging at the Smurflings a second time awhile running over random junk in the process.

Cherskey spot a nearby emergency box and he ran over to it, he opened it and discovered a flare gun with ammo inside. He grabbed it and loaded the flare gun as the bulldozer focused its attention at him, Cherskey aimed the flare gun and fired it at the bulldozer.

A bright green flare shot across the yard and smashed into the bulldozer's engine, already weakened by the Smurflings' constant shining of their flashlights it burst into a shower of yellow sparkles as its engine dies. The only thing left was a bright green flare lying on the spot where the bulldozer had been, Cherskey placed another round into the flare gun before he regrouped with the Smurflings.

"Please tell me we're close to the emergency shelter." said Snappy.

"Its just right around the corner." reassured Cherskey.

**TO BE CONTINUED...**

_Johan looked around frantically in the dead of night, looking for any sign of Peewit. "Pee-wee!" he called out, "Where are you!"_

_Only his own echoed answered back his call, it had been a few hours already and Johan was afraid to return to the King empty handed. It was more than loosing a court-jester that worried everybody, they lost a friend. Getting him back was a dire need, despite the bad jokes and songs in all Peewit was the best friend Johan ever had._

_He sat on a rock, frustrated from the lack of progress. There were no clues, no footprints, no random doodles on boulders, nothing, it seemed that Peewit had vanished from the face of the earth. "What am I going to do?" Johan asked himself, trying his best to hold back his own tears, "Why Peewit? Why didn't you ever listen?"_

"_What do you... callll a boulder ON. FIRE!" cried out a maniac voice, "A SMOULDER! Get it, a SMOULDER? Its... the best joke I had ever made... YET!"_

_Johan turned around and saw a dark shady figure standing before him, he knew who it was. He turned back home ran with all his might, he couldn't see the forest for the tears._


	11. Chapter 11

**Disclaimer: I do not own any characters that were created by someone else**

**Claimer: Go to my profile to view my characters**

Cherskey showed the way to the fallout shelter at the other side of the logging site, it was a large dark hole carved into a hill. The Smurflings didn't trust it, so Cherskey went in first. They watched as he shined his hand-held spotlight down the cave, revealing a large metal door that looks impervious to natural disasters. Cherskey pulled up the cover of a keypad and punched in the access code, when he hit enter the doors slowly opened.

There were two of them, they both open at the same rate as the other. When the Smurflings looked inside, they saw it was dark, more dark than night. "I don't wanna go in there." said Sassette.

"You're lucky they keep the distribution board near the entrance," said Cherskey, "Allow me."

The Smurflings watched as Cherskey walked in and searched around, when he found the circuit board he was talking about he opened up a panel and flipped a few switches. He closes it and turns on a switch at the wall, lights came on in full power. "Come on in guys." said Cherskey.

They were reluctant at first, but eventually came running in. Cherskey hit a switch on the door and closed the inner and outer doors, when they sealed themselves the Smurflings took a deep breath and sighed. "How did you know this?" asked Nelly, "How come I didn't know this?"

"What were you doing in your spare time?" asked Cherskey.

Nelly thought for a moment, nothing came to mind. "Oh..." she muttered.

"How big is this bunker?" asked Snappy.

"Not that big," said Cherskey, "Chances are you wouldn't get lost in here unless you're that stupid."

"I can manage myself." said Snappy.

"Be true to your word." said Cherskey.

Snappy looked around as Cherskey heads to the back, the walls were made out of cinder-blocks painted with a coating of white. Dust covers the concrete floor like sand, high-tech computers, furniture, and other equipment were also covered in dust. The emergency shelter hadn't been used in awhile, so chances are it must be forgotten. Since the bunker was near a green smurf logging site, the best theory the Smurflings could come up with was that its probably neglected. Not forgotten, simply ignored.

With shoulders sagging and eyelids dropping, Sassette, Nat, and Slouchy made their way to the living quarters and found several neatly made beds alined in rows. Something gave abruptly, spooking the smurflings. It sounded like something was powering up.

"Don't worry guys," said Nelly on the intercom, "That's just the ventilation system kicking in, don't wanna let you smurfs get Co2 poisoning you know."

Sassette pressed her hand against the pillow of one of the beds, it felt plush to the touch. Eager to get some sleep, she jumped onto the bed causing dust to fly everywhere. She coughed as she gets off the bed and pulls off the sheets, she took them outside the room and flap them in the hallway before coming back inside to remake the bed. "So dusty," said Sassette, "How are you smurfs doing?"

"We're doing well," said Nat as he repeated Sassette's procedure on his bed, "Hopefully, I don't wake up with body lice in the morning."

They climbed into the beds and laid on it, realizing how soft they really were. It was a lot better than the beds in their clubhouse, Lazy Smurf would enjoy these kinds of beds, maybe live in one.

"This really beats sleeping on the floor big time," said Sassette, "My back feels good, I feel like I'm sinking into a caldron of fluffiness."

"Fluffiness, huh?" said Nat, "I might even sleep on one of these beds for days, when I emerge I'll become a butterfly."

"Hey Slouchy," asked Sassette, "What do you think?"

Slouchy's snores answered Sassette's question, he must be so tired that he fell asleep after climbing into the bed. Sassette chuckled as she returned her attention to the ceiling, staring at an LED bulb. Seeing how brightly it glows made her realize how lucky they were to be alive, they wouldn't have gotten this far without the twins and neither would they gotten this far without them. Seeing how she managed to stay alive caused a tear to drip down her face, whatever grief she had been holding in since the first night was soon released.

"Sassette?" asked Nat, "Why are you crying?"

"I miss Smurfette," she responded as she got onto her belly and snuggled with the pillow, "I still can't believe that she died, I wonder if I might have done anything to save her."

"Its fate Sassette, you can only delay her demise."

"Oh smurf... I couldn't get the picture of her lying on the ground in a pool of her own blood out of my head, its still stinging my eyes."

"We're going to get through this Sassette. We're not halfway there yet, Smurfette will be remembered, I promise on my life."

"Thank you Nat."

"Your welcome."

As Sassette and Nat tried to get some sleep, Snappy sat at the desk in the main room reading over the manuscript pages. He stared at the manuscript page he found on Chernov's desk, the one describing the Taken and how to fight them. He was mostly upset because of this single page, he was starting to accept the fact that the Taken cannot be saved.

He puts the manuscript page away and pinched the bridge of his nose. He wanted to cry, he wanted to end it all. For Snappy, the smurf way of life was over, there's no getting back and not even a blue moon can bring it back. Being one of the last of his species didn't sit well in his mind, the thought felt like torture to him.

Being the self-proclaimed leader of the Smurflings, he wondered if he was going to be the next papa smurf if there ever was going to be a new smurf village erected out of the ashes of the old one. He imagined the responsibility he had to undergo, the pressure of keeping everysmurf together. Snappy wasn't qualified for the job, nor does he even want to be a papa smurf.

The door that leads out into the rest of the bunker opens and Nelly stepped through, when she saw Snappy crying to himself she began to show sympathy. "Snappy?" she asked, "What's wrong?"

Snappy didn't answer, he just got up and ran over to Nelly and gave her a big hug. She understood immediately what Snappy needed and hugged him back, as he cries on her shoulder. "I want my friends back!" he cried, "I want Papa Smurf back, I want Brainy back, I want everysmurf back!"

"There are some things we just gotta learn to live without," said Nelly, "Its not that difficult Snappy, my dad taught us how to be independent when the time comes to just..."

"Let them go?" finished Snappy.

The two let go of each other and took a step back, "I see what you need," said Nelly, "Unconditional love, you can find plenty of that if you know where to look."

"Where?" asked Snappy, still sounding upset.

"Use your instincts," said Nelly, "You gotta feel it."

Snappy realized that Nelly was trying to tell him that some creatures will provide parental care, he just doesn't know where exactly. "Thanks Nelly," he said, "I don't know what to do without you."

"Your welcome," said Nelly, "I just thought about checking up on you, since you and your friends weren't handling the situation well as we are."

"We weren't," said Snappy, "But with you guys with us, I think we might stand a chance."

"Nice to hear it Snappy."

"How's Cherskey by the way?"

"He's sleeping, he's always been fussy with everybody, he turned out just like dad in some ways. When he's sleep deprived, he gets grumpy. He'll be feeling groovy in the morning, you can bet on it."

"How did he react when he heard your dad died."

"To him, it wasn't a surprise, he knew deep down it would happen on day. For me... that's an entirely different story."

"I'm sorry Nelly, its not like I have anything against you in all... just please don't run out of the room crying, my friends lost more loved ones and we had been with them for a really long time. Longer than you have been alive."

"By the way Snappy, something's different about you guys. You're not talking smurf as you used to, you notice?"

Snappy never thought of it, he and his friends weren't talking the smurf language as they used to. They didn't use the term since they left the Smurf Village, the thought made Snappy shiver, "Snappy?" asked Nelly, "Are you okay?"

"Um, I'm fine," responded Snappy, "I just haven't thought of it you know, we should get some rest you know."

"We should," said Nelly, "By the way, don't tell anyone about this."

"I won't-"

Before Snappy could finished, Nelly kissed him in the lips. He felt dumbstruck from her act, he felt like he's floating in the air like a hot-air balloon. When Nelly released her kiss, Snappy nearly lost his balance. "Dad didn't want me doing that," said Nelly, "But screw it. To tell you the truth Snappy, I always loved you. You're just like my relatives, the personalities are alike. I know kissing isn't exactly love, I just gotta show it, you know."

"You've been expressing love from the start Nelly," said Snappy as he placed his hand on his temple, "Oh smurf, that felt strange."

"Oh there's your smurf language," said Nelly, "Goodnight Snappy."

"Goodnight Nelly." said Snappy.

As Nelly heads back to the security room, Snappy heads over to the living quarters and saw his friends sleeping peacefully in their beds. He took a deep breath and sighed as he grabbed the sheets of a bed, shake off all the dust from its fibers, and place it back on. He climbs into the bed and covers himself up with the blanket, all in the while thinking of Nelly's actions.

He knew there was something about her he can't place his finger on, now he knew what it was. Discovering that Nelly had viewed him from affair was disturbing, but he let it pass by, he didn't want to break her heart. Snappy tries his best to ignore the bright lights, he can't risk turning them off or the Dark Presence might barge in and attack them. The thought of it scared him to the core, at least the lights were on and were protecting them.

Snappy closed his eyes, and try to appease his mind from the thoughts of the Dark Presence. Within minutes, he was finally dreaming.

**TO BE CONTINUED...**

_As Dashie had the green smurfs haul off the Smurflings, she took a look at the manuscript pages that she fought Snappy to get a hold of. The manuscript was incomplete, nothing more than random pages detailing random events. It surprised her that she was a character in a story someone was written. Even though these were a few pages, this was all she need to convict the Smurflings of the murder of Smurfette._


	12. Chapter 12

**Disclaimer: I do not own any characters that were created by someone else**

**Claimer: Go to my profile to view my characters**

Throughout the night, Snappy turned and toss in his sleep, his brain was constantly bombarded with thoughts and dreams about the darkness. He dreamed of running through the forest at night, running away from the hundreds of Taken chasing him. Before he knew it, an ax split his skull and smashed in in.

Snappy's eyes shot open, his heart pounding hard. Terror from the dream was still stinging his mind, but at least its over. He stared at the lights above him for a moment before pulling the covers off of him and climbing out of bed. He took a moment to collect his thoughts before examining his surroundings.

Sassette was still in bed but Nat and Slouchy were gone, their beds were neatly made. Wondering where they were, Snappy heads out into the hall and made his way to the main room. When he got there, he found Nat and Slouchy on the couch talking. "Hey guys." said Snappy.

"Hey Snappy." said Nat and Slouchy in unison.

"Cherskey is getting ready," said Slouchy, "You better wake Sassette up, we have a big day ahead of us."

"Okay." said Snappy.

Snappy leaves the room and heads back to the living quarters, there he shook Sassette's shoulder until she stirred, "Is it morning?" she grumbled.

"Yes Sassette," said Snappy, "You gotta get up, we have a big day ahead of us."

"Fine." she grumbled as she tossed aside the covers.

She got out of bed and follows Snappy back to the main room, they found Cherskey and Nelly waiting for them. "Wow," said Snappy, "Your quick."

"So are you." said Cherskey.

"What are we doing exactly?" asked Snappy.

"Breakfast," said Sassette as she rubbed her belly, "And a big one."

"Maybe the logging site has some food," said Cherskey, "Green smurfs always keep a large store of them, its mostly meat products however."

"I'm craving squirrel meat at the moment." said Nelly.

Cherskey approached the iron doors and pressed a button to open them, when they slide open sunlight from the outside came pouring in, it felt comforting to the Smurflings. "Let's go." said Cherskey, "We don't have any time to loose."

The Smurflings leaved the emergency shelter as Cherskey closed the iron doors behind them, they soon head back up the ridge and into the logging site where they had viscous battles against the Taken. The damage was clear to see, there was no blood nor were there was any signs of those who worked here. They were probably long gone, taken by the Dark Presence.

"We gotta find the modular office," said Cherskey, "That's where all the most important crap is being stored."

After looking around, the Smurflings found the modular office in question. It was small, it was suppose to be temporary since logging sites obviously don't last forever. When they head inside, they found a desk, a rack full of guns, several hard hats equipped with an attachable lamp, and a HAM radio sitting on the desk. There was no food anywhere, but the Smurflings looked anyway.

Snappy walked up to the HAM radio and turned it on, that's when they began to hear Rick's voice coming out of the speakers. "Last night was a nightmare," he said, "I don't know who gave Dashie authority to do what she did, she chased the young Smurflings out of our colony and had many of our brothers and sisters slaughtered. I don't know what exactly happened, but really guys... why did you listen to her anyway?"

Rick went on rambling about his personal thoughts about the Smurflings, his thoughts about Chernov, his thoughts about Smurfette, and the fate of the Green Smurf Colony. As he does so, the Smurflings moved onto searching the entire modular office for anything useful. They only keep finding documents about the state of the logging site, Cherskey found one document detailing the accident rate, "Logging Accidents per month," he announced, "One. Isn't that inspiring."

He puts the file back and kept searching, "I found some batteries," said Sassette, "I think these are rechargeable."

"Are they green?" asked Nelly.

"Yes." said Sassette.

"Find a charger," said Cherskey, "Where there's rechargeable batteries around, they're bound to be a charger for them somewhere."

"Is this it?" asked Snappy as he held up the charger in question.

"Yes, that's it." said Cherskey.

Nat opened up a cabinet and peered inside, "Hey," he said, "I found some backpacks."

"How many?" asked Snappy.

"Four," said Nat, "There's enough for me, Slouchy, and Sassette."

"Put them on then," said Cherskey, "Knowing you guys, we might be carrying a lot of stuff."

Snappy, Slouchy, and Nat took the backpacks and put them on, "Green smurfs designed these backpacks so you can put stuff in it without taking it off," noted Nelly, "Its very convenient with practice, just reach over to your back and put-"

Cherskey nudged Nelly with his elbow, "Too much information, Nelly." said Cherskey.

"Oh," said Nelly, "Sorry."

Slouchy pulled open a cabinet and looked inside it, he managed to find two more manuscript pages, "Found more pages," said Slouchy as he grab them, "Snappy, here."

He hands the pages to Snappy where he puts it in the folder in his backpack, "Thanks Slouchy," said Snappy, "We'll look through these later."

"Where's the food?" complained Nat as he searched more cabinets.

"Well its gotta be somewhere in this logging site." said Cherskey.

The Smurflings leave the modular office and focused their attention elsewhere, "Where do they keep the lunch boxes at?" asked Nelly.

"I think they've eaten it all," said Cherskey, "No matter, we'll just find a smurfberry bush in the forest."

"Oh I forgotten about those." said Snappy.

The Smurflings head out into the forest and searched around, sure enough a lonely smurfberry bush sits near an oak tree. "Oh smurf!" cried Sassette, "Smurfberries."

The twins however had no taste for smurfberries, to them they have no flavor. Though the acorns were promising, Cherskey and Nelly were more thirsty than hungry. With their canteens dry, its time for them to restock on water. "Hey guys," said Cherskey, "How are those smurfberries?"

"Good," said Sassette, "Are you sure you don't want any?"

"Not unless they're the only food in the world," said Cherskey, "Let's go to the river and get something to drink, maybe use the bathroom and take care of personal hygiene too."

"Where is the River Smurf?" asked Slouchy.

"I think its far from here," said Nat, "If my sense of direction is correct, we're nowhere close to it."

"There's a small creek over there," said Cherskey, "Let's see if there's any water there."

As the Smurflings finished licking the smurfberry juice off their fingers, they head off to the nearby creek. They can actually see it, but they can't see what's in it. When they got there, they looked inside and saw putrid stagnant water. It appeared black, it had a fowl odor to it, and flies were flying around it. "Oh that is sick," said Nelly nonchalantly, "No way I'm drinking that."

"You're lucky I brought a pot with me you guys," said Cherskey, "Allow me."

Cherskey took off his backpack and opened it, true to his word he pulled out a small pot and sat it aside, "I'm going to need some wood for this to work." said Cherskey, "Could you please gather some?"

The Smurflings head out into the forest and gathered some twigs and branches for Cherksey, after a few minutes they returned with arm full of branches. As they all sat it in a pile, Cherskey grabbed some branches and broke it into small twigs, he placed them in a small pile before he took out a flint and piece of steel. After he created sparks into the bundle, he blew on it gently before it created some flame. "Now we just have to fill this pot up with water." said Cherskey.

"The creek looks a bit too deep though." said Nat, "By the way, what is all that?"

"Green smurf sewage," said Cherskey, "A few days old."

"That's not what I want to hear," said Snappy, "What are you trying to do anyway?"

"Gather some water in this pot and boil it," said Cherskey, "Then use a filter for the water before we drink it, I've done it numerous times before, I can tell you that we could make safe drinking water out of that gunk right there without much of a problem."

"Okay Cherskey," said Snappy, "Give it a go."

As Nat maintains the fire, Cherskey took the pot and got down onto his belly. He crawled to the rim of the creek and dipped his pot into the septic water. After brushing off most of the gunk off by scraping the pot against the side of the creek wall, he pulls it out and sat the pot into the fire. "Now we wait until it boils," said Cherskey, "Unlike the Smurf Village, the Green Smurf Colony had troubles with their water supply."

"They do?" asked Snappy.

"They have a river running near the colony," said Cherskey, "They're dependent on it for their drinking purposes, so dependent that they wouldn't bathe in it. However, not all green smurfs see it that way as they at times treat the river as a toilet, often bathing in it. Overtime, the river became a secs pool of disease. Adult green smurfs had no problem with diseases, they have superior immune systems. However, green smurflings don't have much of an immune system, so Typhoid, Cholera, Dysentery, and Influenza reeks havoc among them. They don't get it by drinking the water, they get it by bathing in it."

"What happened to them?" asked Sassette.

"All the green smurflings die from the diseases," said Cherskey, "For every 10 green smurflings infected with pollution-based diseases, only 3 of them will survive. I was one of the lucky ones, Chernov passed down his immunity to these diseases to me and Nelly. Sometimes it doesn't even work out that way for many."

Cherskey looked into the pot and saw that it was boiling, he took a stick and scooped ashes into the water before stirring it, "The activated carbon will help remove some particles from the water," said Cherskey, "Now for the tricky part."

He reached into his backpack and pulled out a bottle equipped with a filter and a hose, he puts the hose into the water and began to use the hand pump. The Smurflings watched as Cherskey pumped water into the bottle, amazingly the water was clear. After a few minutes it was full, and Cherskey removed the cap and handed it to Nelly, "You wanna be the first to try?" asked Cherskey.

"Sure." said Nelly.

Nelly took the bottle and took a sip from it, she swished it around her mouth for a little bit before swallowing, "Its okay Cherskey," said Nelly, "Its safe to drink."

Cherskey took a sip before passing it around, each smurfling took a sip from the bottle, they were reluctant in doing so since it came from green smurf fecal matter. Once they all got a sip, Cherskey got out his canteen and refilled it with water. "You know," said Cherskey, "I realized how stupid I was."

"You do?" asked Snappy.

"There's water back in the emergency shelter," said Cherskey, "Including these small packs where you dump it into water like this and it makes it clear and drinkable. But hey, all options are available."

Cherskey handed the bottle back to Nelly and she refilled her canteen with the water, when she's done she handed it to the Smurflings. "Drink a fraction of it each," said Nelly, "We're not wasting anything."

The Smurflings agreed and they all drank their share of the water, "What's the chance of getting sick from this Cherskey?" asked Snappy.

"That depends on your immune system," said Cherskey, "The best you can hope for is diarrhea."

"Well that's reassuring." said Snappy sarcastically.

"Its close enough, you know." said Cherskey.

Once all the water is gone, Snappy handed back the bottle and Cherskey put the lid back on, refilled it a little, and washed out the small hose. With it all clean, he dumped out the gunk out of the pot back into the creek, "I wonder what else is there around these parts." he said as he washed out the pot with the remaining filtered water from the bottle.

He dumped out all the water back into the creek, wiped it clean, and stashed it all back into his backpack, "Snappy," asked Cherskey, "Do you know where to go exactly?"

"Truth is," said Snappy, "I don't."

"Let's head back to the emergency shelter then," said Cherskey, "And plan our next move."

"Okay then." said Snappy.

**TO BE CONTINUED...**

_Rick thought to himself how foolish he was, announcing everything he had promised not to do. He betrayed the Smurflings, and now they're in exile from the colony, all because of him. The green smurfs don't blame him, he was only caught in the mist of a terrible situation the Smurflings brought with them and he needed time to recover. Rick couldn't take the stress, it was all too much for him to bare._

_He grabbed the vodka bottle and stared at it for a brief moment, "Please," he said, "Just let me get through this."_


	13. Chapter 13

**Disclaimer: I do not own any characters that were created by someone else**

**Claimer: Go to my profile to view my characters**

For once, the Smurflings don't even know what to do. They don't know where to go nor do they know who to trust, it felt like the whole world was against them. It was getting to the Smurflings faster than they realize, only time will tell until the true effects is shown.

Back at the emergency shelter, the Smurflings sat down on the couch to rest, their feet were sore and their minds were in a bog. "Does anyone know what the plan is?" asked Cherskey, "I kinda feel like I'm doing most of the work."

"You are doing most of the work," said Snappy, "You brought us here, found some drinkable water out of sewage, and since you know the landscape so well, you might be the leader for all I know."

"I guess I left no room for your ideas then," said Cherskey, "I'm sorry about that."

"You don't have to apologize Cherskey," said Snappy, "You knew what to do from the start, I'm not quite sure what would we all do without you and Nelly."

"My father taught us how to be independent from the adults," said Cherskey, "Just in case something bad happens and we get separated, we know what to do. Now we're stuck with you guys in a nightmare without end."

"Is that a bad thing?" asked Sassette.

"No," said Cherskey, "Its because you guys don't give me enough breaks."

Cherskey got up and left the room, grumbling under his breath due to frustration. When the door slams shut behind him, Nelly glanced over at the Smurflings before following Cherskey as well. "Cherskey," she said, "Come on, bro."

When the Smurflings were alone, Snappy let out a long sigh, "So smurfs," he said, "Has Cherskey had enough?"

"It looks like it." said Sassette.

"Well," said Nat, "How many times to we ask him to do things?"

"None," said Slouchy, "Maybe his devotion into helping us is driving him nuts."

"True," said Snappy, "He's gotta learn when to take a break and let other smurfs do some work, its not fair for him to do all the work and leave us with nothing."

"We should get some rest too guys," said Sassette, "If we're going to fight the Dark Presence, then we should nap."

"I agree Sassette." said Nat.

All the Smurflings got off the couch and head back to the living quarters, there they nap for most of the day and so does Cherskey and Nelly. Many of the Smurflings dreamed of darkness taking over the land and enslaving everyone to use as servants, the thought made them shiver but dreams was the least of their worries. There was a loud thud coming from outside, all the Smurflings stirred as they hear a crashing sound coming from the front.

"What was that?" asked Slouchy.

Cherskey and Nelly ran into the room, all suited up with their heavy-duty spotlights out and ready, "Hey guys," said Cherskey, "We gotta go, now!"

"What's the rush?" asked Snappy.

"Green smurfs!" cried Nelly.

"Come out of there!" they heard Dashie's voice coming from outside, "Or we'll flood this place with chlorine gas!"

The Smurflings quickly scrambled out of bed and put their backpacks on, they got out their flashlights as Cherskey handed them each a pistol, "I found these in the security room," said Cherskey, "I know of a way out, follow me!"

All the Smurflings followed Cherskey as numerous green smurfs gathered around the front, "You know what?" said Dashie, "Let's storm the place!"

The Smurflings followed Cherskey to the back where he showed them a secret hatch, when he opened it they saw a ladder leading straight to the surface. "Go up the ladder!" cried Cherskey, "No time to explain, just move it!"

Snappy heads in first as all the other Smurflings rushed in, as the last smurfling went through Cherskey was about to follow the group when Dashie kicked down the door into the room. Without saying anything, Dashie pulled out her gun and fired a shot at Cherskey as he managed to make it into the hatch. Before she could follow them, Rick came from behind and grabbed her by the shoulder, "What the hell was that for Dashie!" he cursed, "Why are you shooting them!"

As Dashie and Rick argue, the Smurflings managed to make it out of the emergency shelter through the secret hatch, "Where to?" asked Snappy.

"Anywhere!" cried Cherskey, "Ah!"

"What's wrong Cherskey?" asked Nelly.

"I'll tell you later," said Cherskey, "Let's get outta here first."

The Smurflings turned on their flashlights and ran out the area, away from the logging site and the emergency shelter. They ran as fast as they could go, not stopping to look behind them. After just a few minutes of running, the Smurflings reached the point where they couldn't run anymore. They stopped and rest for a moment awhile Sassette looked behind them, thinking the green smurfs had followed them.

"Is everysmurf okay?" asked Snappy.

"No," said Cherskey, "I got shot."

"Where!" asked Nelly.

"In the arm." said Cherskey.

Cherskey held up his arm and saw a bullet wound the size of her thumb, when Snappy shined his flashlight at the wound they saw how serious it was, "The bullet went clean through it," he said, "I need some gauze please."

Nelly took off her backpack and pulled out some gauze, "If it ever gives me an infection," said Cherskey as Nelly begins to wrap it, "I hope it wipes me off the face of the earth."

"Why?" asked Sassette.

"Better to die from an infection than to be enslaved by darkness," said Cherskey, "I hate this job."

As Cherskey continue to mumble under his breath, Nelly finishes wrapping gauze around the wound and Nelly cuts and tapes the bandages in place. She puts the bandages away and added pure alcohol to the gauze, though she should have sterilized the wound before wrapping it up with gauze, Nelly was in a state of shock and cannot think straight. When she's done, she puts everything away and hugged Cherskey, crying.

"There there my sister," said Cherskey, "I'm going to be okay. Just save your energy, we have a long night ahead of us."

At that moment, the shadows began to move as the wind begins to blow, the loud roar of the Dark Presence was heard nearby. "Its close," said Snappy, "Get ready!"

"Behind you!" cried Cherskey.

The Smurflings turned around and saw numerous Taken appearing out of the darkness, some were blue smurfs and some were green smurfs. Somehow, the Smurflings felt that the Dark Presence were getting stronger with each encounter. "It... is a great day to go outside and play." said a blue smurf Taken, reminding the Smurflings on who they once were.

They aimed their flashlights at the Taken and removed their dark coverings, then shot them until they disintegrate like glass taking a hit from a baseball. The green smurf Taken were more difficult to kill. The Smurflings had to put more of an effort into defeating them, especially when they charge at them to take a swing with their ax.

As the last of the Taken falls, the Smurflings try to figure out their next move. They wouldn't survive long if they don't have a destination in mind. "Where should we go," asked Sassette, "There should be something we could take cover in."

"I know of a place where we could hide," said Cherskey, "Its an abandoned green smurf outpost, nobody have never been there since the Humanoid Wars. Its because of the number of landmines that were buried near it was too great."

"Landmines?" asked Snappy.

"What, you don't know what a landmine is?" asked Cherskey.

"Its an underground bomb that goes boom." said Nelly.

"Step on one," said Cherskey, "And you'll loose both your legs, period."

The Smurflings gulped in response, but they're willing to take the risk. Better to get blown up than getting chopped with an ax, its faster that way.

With a destination planned, all the Smurflings have to do was to go to it. The abandoned green smurf outpost wasn't entirely abandoned as Cherskey thought it would, it had been used on special occasions, usually private parties. Green smurfs, either one or in small groups, would come here to drink and perform acts of sexual activity, since they always clean up their messes there wasn't much showing that someone had been here at all.

Since there were no roads leading to the outpost, it would be like trying to find the Smurf Village for the first time. Cherskey leads the way as the Smurflings followed him, Snappy was a bit steamed from Cherskey leading all the smurflings everywhere for most of the time. Ever since the Smurflings included them into their group, Cherskey and Nelly were making most of the decisions on what they should do.

After putting some thought, he realized that they know this part of the forest than they do/ Chernov had taken the twins through these woods on several occasions, they had memorized every landmarks and roads out here.

Snappy theorized that they might make more decisions in the green smurf's territory, the twins, even though they live with the Smurflings, hadn't memorized the forest near their area well. The twins never actually leaved the village, only when Chernov takes them out for something. Cherskey and Nelly spent most of their time with their mother, Rachael, or by themselves.

"Do you know any more about this outpost Cherskey?" asked Nat.

"Actually," said Cherskey, "I'm not quite sure. I got my information from fellow green smurfs and it wasn't proven at all. At times, green smurfs aren't even reliable despite the advanced technology and industry."

Just as they near the green smurf outpost, Cherskey stopped everyone. "Stop!" he ordered.

"What happened?" asked Snappy.

Cherskey shined his spotlight up ahead, he revealed yellow light-sensitive rings on the soil, no more than the size of a smurf's dinner plate. They were spread out in a rhombus pattern, Cherskey picked up a stone and threw it onto one of the rings. When it made contact, the ring exploded, showering dust and dirt everywhere in a massive mushroom cloud.

"Close call," said Cherskey, "I wonder who put the rings there to reveal the mines."

"The oven... must be pre-heated to FOUR-HUNDRED DEGREES, before you can bake a... FRESH LOAF OF BREAD!"

The loud voice startled the Smurflings, breaking the silence of the dead night. "What was that?" asked Nat.

"A Taken," said Snappy, "Wanna guess who it was?"

"Yoouuu... MUST... have the right ingredients," continued the maniac distorted voice as it echos throughout the forest, "If you want a GOOD TASTING loaf of fresh bread! If you don't... THEN... it would taste UNSMURFY!"

A Taken with thick layers of shadows suddenly showed itself, dropping down from the top of the trees before landing on the ground. The Smurflings saw that it was wearing a chef smurf hat and a handkerchief, it was holding a frying pan and a large kitchen knife. "Its Greedy!" cried Sassette.

"For tonight," said Greedy, "I bake you smurfs... a large CAKE for you to DINE ON! Just to show you how MUCH I CARE for you!"

Greedy started marching towards the Smurflings as they shined their flashlight at him, he used his frying pan to shield his eyes from the light as he marches towards them. He wasn't paying attention when he stepped on one of the rings, detonating the mine underneath. The possessed Greedy was launched into the air by the kinetic force of the blast, he flew several meters into the air before coming back down to earth, hitting the ground hard. The explosion and the landing did no damage to him whatsoever.

"How did he survive?" asked Nat

"The darkness controlling him protects him from all harm," explained Snappy, "We gotta burn the darkness away before we can harm him. Remember now?"

"Oh," said Nat, "I kinda forgotten about that."

Just as Greedy was getting up, a hatchet flew by the Smurflings and lodged itself into the trunk of a tree. They turned around and saw more Taken coming after them, screaming mad gibberish. "Run!" cried Snappy.

**TO BE CONTINUED...**

_If being surrounded by numerous Taken was bad enough, it was going to get worse for the Smurflings. A shriek boomed across the air, like a witch screaming at the top of her lungs. It swooped down like a vulture, nearly grabbing Snappy and whisking him away out into the cold dark night. Cherskey pulled out a flare gun and shot it with a bright green flare, its feathers burned, turned into ash. The Smurflings couldn't hear their own scream above the creature's._


	14. Chapter 14

**Disclaimer: I do not own any characters that were created by someone else**

**Claimer: Go to my profile to view my characters**

The Smurflings made a run for it through the minefield as the Taken follows suit, every few seconds they heard a Taken detonate a mine each time they stepped on one, the sound was so loud that it nearly blew out the Smurflings' ear drums.

As terrifying as it was, they found more terror when they reached the green smurf outpost. The Taken were crawling all over the area, and they sensed the Smurflings' arrival. Admits the decaying buildings and ruined parking lot was a large well-built stage, it would have taken a crazy to build such a thing in the middle of nowhere. The sight amazed the Smurflings, in fact it provided the high ground. When they heard a chainsaw roar, they rushed towards the stage and climbed onto it.

"Wow," said Nelly, "Look at the surround-sound!"

"What's more important are the lights," said Cherskey, "Hold them off as I get the stage lights on!"

Cherskey rushed to the back past the thick velvet curtains and found the circuit breaker connected to a generator, both were in poor condition yet appears to still be able to run. He sat down his gun and began to crank the generator, Nelly came by to protect him as the Taken attacked the front of the stage. "How long is this going to take Cherskey?" asked Nelly.

"Its going to be difficult to get this generator to cooperate," said Cherskey, "Piece of sh#t had been exposed to the elements for months."

"Don't take too long!" called out Snappy, "Its getting unsmurfy out here!"

The Smurflings kept the Taken at bay as they try to get on top of the stage, they were running low on ammo and the batteries in their flashlights were running low on power. "It is nice knowing you guys." said Sassette as she saw more Taken approach from the back.

"Look out!" cried Snappy.

Sassette managed to dodge an ax as it came down on top of her, it plunged into the stage without harming her. She looked to see who done it and noticed it was Painter Smurf, she could tell by the coat he wears all the time. "Stop moving!" he snarled as he pulled the ax out of the hole he made, "Or the PICTURE will be... RUINED!"

Surprised from Painter, Sassette tripped and fell backwards. She dropped her flashlight and it rolled towards the curtains as Painter was upon her, Sassette tried shooting Painter with her pistol, no effect.

"Help!" she cried, "I need help!"

The other Smurflings couldn't do anything as many Taken were coming onto the stage at once, "Fear the green smurf war machine!" roared one of the green smurf Taken.

"I don't... go near FLOWERS!" cried Greedy as he came out of the forest beyond, "I'm alllergiiic to their POLLEN!"

Painter raised his ax up high as Sassette stared into the darkness of his eyes, she felt her own heart stopped completely. Just before Painter was able to give her the killing blow, the stage lights went on and bathed the stage in bright lights as fireworks go off near the front of the stage. The Taken caught near it all were annihilated by the bright lights, Sassette watched as Painter burst into light fragments and vanished completely.

"Whoa!" cheered Snappy, "That's amazing!"

What was more amazing was the song the speakers were booming out, by the time the twins regrouped with the Smurflings from the backstage the first verse began to play:

_Warriors, torchbearers, come redeem our dreams  
>Shine a light upon this night of otherworldly fiends<br>Grandpa's might be your guide, divorce you from the sane  
>The smurfs way will have their say, rise up in their name <em>

"I know that voice," said Cherskey, "Its dad's!

_Oh, Memory and Thought  
>Jet black and clawed <em>

The stage lights went out, but there were some lights flashing across the field in front of the stage as more Taken was about to attack. "Hold them off!" cried Snappy.

_Children of the Elder Smurfs!_

_Ohhhhh!_

_Scourge of light upon the dark!_

The flashing lights from the stage and the fireworks going off at the field either help kill various Taken or removed their dark shrouds, Greedy tried to get onto the stage but Slouchy gunned him down before he does so. An obese green smurf Taken was coming after the Smurflings with a chainsaw, but some fireworks removed its dark shroud and Nat was able to kill it awhile the Taken was stunned, it burst into a static light before disappearing:

_Scratching hag, you can rake your claws and gnash your crooked teeth  
>You've taken slaves like ocean waves, now feel the ocean seethe<br>Papa Smurf, bless this war, between the dark and light  
>In their songs let their wrongs bring dissolution's night<em>

"I like this song!" cheered Nelly.

_Oh, Memory and Thought  
>Jet black and clawed <em>

_Children of the Elder Smurfs!_

_Ohhhhh! _

_Scourge of light upon the dark!_

"Hey guys," said Nelly, "This may be the best moment of our entire lives!"

"They're trying to kill us!" cried Cherskey, "That's the highest point of my life?"

"Yeah, seriously." said Snappy.

"Children of the Elder Smurfs!" commanded Nelly like an all powerful queen, "Enjoy it, goddammit!"

Wave upon wave of Taken came after the Smurflings, they held them off with a new boost of confidence. On occasion, they tossed a flare or a flash-bang grenade out into the field just in case their were more Taken than they could handle. Nelly ran back to the stage without notifying the smurfs, but it wasn't long before the Smurflings took notice.

"Hey?" asked Cherskey, "Where's Nelly."

"I don't know," said Snappy as he held up a flashlight, its light glow in a weak beam, "My flashlight almost dead, its no good."

"Mine too," said Sassette, "How about yours Nat?"

"Batteries are completely dead." said Nat as he held up an unlit flashlight.

"So are mine." said Slouchy.

"I still have some kick in this flashlight," said Cherskey, "Maybe if-"

"Hey guys!" interrupted Nelly, "Look!"

The Smurflings saw as Nelly pushed what appears to be a searchlight from the back stage and out into the open, it was hooked up to the generator that was powering everything and it was glowing a powerful beam of light. "Check this out!" she cried.

Nelly aimed the massive searchlight out into the fields and targeted many Taken, the Smurflings watched as their dark shrouds were ripped to shreds within seconds before the Taken themselves were destroyed. The searchlight proved powerful as it held off the Taken with ease, it helped even the odds.

"You're crazy Nelly!" contemplated Cherskey, "But that's fine!"

"Hey, I found this in the back," said Nelly, "What were you doing, hmm?"

"Can we argue about this la-"

Suddenly, numerous fireworks went off all over the field of the abandoned outpost. Once the light disappointed, the field that was once swarming with Taken was empty. The generator in the back called it quits and everything that it was powering shuts down, the show was now over.

"That. Was. Awesome!" cheered Nelly as she punched both fists into the air, then she tripped and fell off the searchlight's platform, "Whoa!"

Cherskey caught Nelly in time and sat her down, "Thanks, bro." said Nelly.

"Your welcome." said Cherskey, "Oh Nelly?"

"Yeah?" asked Nelly.

Cherskey wrapped his arm around Nelly's neck and gave her a choke-hold, then proceed to give her a noogie.

"No, no!" she laughed as Cherskey ground his fist on the top of Nelly's head, "Not the noogie!"

Nelly flipped Cherskey over her shoulder and the two wrestles on the ground, giggling and laughing. "Guys!" said Snappy, causing the twins to stop to look at him, "Don't we have something to do?"

"What do you want to do?" asked Cherskey.

"I want somewhere to sleep tonight," said Snappy, "I'm tired of running all over the place."

"Okay," said Cherskey, "Where do you guys wanna sleep at?"

"Maybe in one of those ruined buildings," said Slouchy, "They seemed to be sturdy enough to take shelter in."

"Well," said Cherskey as he and Nelly got back onto their feet, "What are you waiting for? Let's go."

The Smurflings got off the stage and head over to the entrance of a ruined barracks, Snappy looked at his flashlight as it struggled to produce a beam of light, it flickered and blinked as it coughed out its last remaining power, "I wonder if there's any batteries around here," said Snappy as he banged the head of his flashlight, trying to keep it going, "I feel like I'm running naked in the dark without them."

"There could be some batteries around here but I doubt it," said Cherskey, "Chances are, the batteries would probably be dead since they are left behind by other smurfs."

"Wait a sec," said Snappy, "Did we have some batteries stockpiled in our backpacks?"

"I think we do." said Sassette.

Snappy took off his backpack and fumble around inside it, "Oh," he said as he pulled out a couple of blue batteries, "I still have some lithium batteries from Chernov's house."

"Oh, so that's where I left those," said Nelly, "We were in a rush, we didn't get everything though."

"We didn't, Ms. Forgetful." grumbled Cherskey, "I placed you in charge of the batteries, remember?"

"No." said Nelly, cracking a guilty smile.

Snappy opened up his flashlight and dumped its dead batteries onto the floor, he inseted the fresher batteries in its place and screwed the flashlight's head back on. When he turned the flashlight on, its powerful beam was restored.

"That's better." said Snappy, satisfied by the light the flashlight was giving off.

He pulled out some more batteries and handed his friends two batteries each. When they switched the dead batteries with the new ones, their flashlight glowed bright once again. "With our flashlight problem taken care of," said Nat, "Now lets find a bed."

The Smurflings searched around the barracks, debris from the rotting ceiling littered the floor, bunk beds turned over as their frames rusts, footlockers picked clean from every possible item they once contained. There must be something the Smurflings can use.

Cherskey walked over to a nearby circuit box and opened its panel, the fuses and switches appear to be in good condition. He noticed the main breaker was off, so he flipped the switch to the on position. Ironically, all the lights came on and brightened up the place. It nearly blinded the Smurflings, at least they don't have to use up their precious batteries.

"The outpost must be still connected to the colony," said Cherskey, "Which mean, the colony must be close by."

"Why?" asked Snappy.

"I don't know," said Cherskey, "Usually green smurf outposts run on their own energy, if they're close to the Motherland then they might make a connection to here."

Some of the LED lightbulbs flicker awhile others fail to come on completely, the Smurflings wonder if it was indeed a safe place to be in. "Barricade the doors and windows," said Snappy, "Use anything that could provide an obstacle."

"Those lice-infested beds might do," said Cherskey, "If I had no hair, I would sleep on them."

"Lice?" asked Nat.

"Parasites that live on the hairy parts of humans," said Cherskey, "They're a nuisance in green smurf society, why do you think many green smurfettes keep their hair trimmed to their ears?"

"That is something good to know," said Sassette as she placed her hands on her head, "I don't wanna deal with lice in a situation like this."

"So what are we going to sleep on then?" asked Slouchy.

"I'll worry about that once we get this place secured," said Cherskey, "Help me moving this bed to the door, will you?"

It took several minutes to move most of the bunk beds and footlockers to the outside doors, barricading them until there was no possible way to get in without making noise. When the Smurflings were done, they head somewhere around the small offices where they could at least barricade themselves in. Luckily they found a small room with a brick fireplace, a couch, a bookshelf filled with tattered books, a pile of dried branches, and an electric lantern sitting on its side up against the corner.

The place was lit with a light with a dim switch, Cherskey dimmed the place just to a level where the light couldn't bother them when they sleep, yet bright enough to still be protect them from the Dark Presence. "We can stay here for the night," said Snappy, "Its safe, secure, no windows, this is it."

"I'll see if I could get a fire running in that fireplace," said Cherskey, "With the place nice and warm, we'll sleep easily tonight."

"Snappy," said Nelly, "You get the couch."

"Thanks." said Snappy.

There happened to be a couple of logs sitting in the fireplace, partially burned. Cherskey took out his lighter and lit a flame to it, with the log lit he gave it a moment to burn before adding small stick into the fireplace from the pile of kindling. "That should do it," said Cherskey, "Now we sit back and relax for the night.

The Smurflings sat on the ground and watched the fire dance as it burns through its fuel, it wasn't long before they were able to feel the heat coming off of the flames. "Does Chernov or Rachael tell you stories before bed?" asked Sassette.

"Rachael doesn't," said Cherskey, "She's not that imaginative, Chernov however does."

"I remember being in his arms as he rock us to sleep," said Nelly, "He told us stories from the past, from our ancestors."

"Dad said that our family were once knights who served Russian tzars," continued Cherskey, "Once the monarchy was 'abolished' we were freelance for awhile. He told me that his grandfather and his grandfather's father fought wars, both had many near-death experiences. Grandpa was tired of wars, my dad feels his pain well."

"What we're experiencing is similar to what they had experienced?" asked Snappy.

"They didn't fight supernatural wars," said Cherskey, "They fought conventional wars."

"Oh." said Snappy.

Snappy climbed onto the couch and sat his backpack on the floor, "Goodnight guys," he said as he laid back on it, "Don't let the bedbugs bite."

"They like to live in clothing," said Nelly, "They had been since-"

Cherskey nudged his elbow into Nelly's side, stopping her mid-sentence, "Oh," she said, "Sorry. Night guys."

"Goodnight." said Nat.

"Night." said Sassette.

"Goodnight." said Slouchy.

"Sleep well," said Cherskey, "If we're under attack, you know what to do."

The Smurflings tried their best to get comfortable, even though the concrete floor was cold the heat from the fireplace kept them warm. Nelly grabbed the nearby electric lantern and flipped its switch, it glowed with a bright light. She sat it aside before snuggling with Cherskey, all the Smurflings except Snappy huddled together and tried to get some sleep.

Even though the couch was soft, Snappy wasn't used to sleeping without a pillow. He thought about getting one of the pillows from the main room, he had no hair, the lice wouldn't bother them. Thoughts about small bugs crawling into his ears and nose however made him changed his mind, he glanced over to the bookshelf and noticed some tattered pages crammed above the books.

Quietly, he got up and grabbed the pages, under the dim glow of the ceiling light he could see realized these were manuscript pages. It was a couple dozen pages, Snappy took the time to look through them. It wasn't much, but Snappy figured that he could read them all tomorrow. He opened his backpack and pulled out the folder of collected manuscript pages and placed the pages he found with the rest.

He tucked the pages back into the backpack and laid back to stare at the ceiling, slowly but surely Snappy soon fell asleep.

**TO BE CONTINUED...**

_He lift up the page in front of his eyes and read it. In it, he lift up the page in front of his eyes and read it. In it, he lift up the page in front of his eyes and read it. In it, he lift up the page in front of his eyes and read it. In it, he lift up the page in front of his eyes and read it. In it, he lift up the page in front of his eyes and read it. In it, he lift up the page in front of his eyes and read it. In it, he lift up the page in front of his eyes and read it. In it, he lift up the page in front of his eyes and read it. In it, he lift up the page in front of his eyes and read it. In it, he lift up the page in front of his eyes and read it. _


	15. Chapter 15

**Disclaimer: I do not own any characters that were created by someone else**

**Claimer: Go to my profile to view my characters**

Snappy had this crazy dream. He found himself trapped in a fog in the middle of nowhere, he couldn't see no more than his arm's reach. After stumbling around with no destination in mind, he started running in desperation. As he ran, he felt like he was going nowhere fast.

"Help!" he cried out in sheer panic, "Somebody help me!"

No one responded to his cries for help, instead the fog that was surrounding him turned from a misty white to an oily black with a hint of gray. He became scared, he thought he was going to die, to drown in the darkness that had trapped him. It wasn't long before he had company.

A bright flash of light appeared in the heavens and slowly decended to the ground, Snappy used his hand to parcially shield his eyes from the bright light eminating from the entity.

"Who are you?" asked Snappy once he realized it had a mind of its own, "What are you?"

"I'm here to teach you an important lesson," said the entity in a heavenly tone, "You can call me the Light Presence if you feel like it."

"Okay," said Snappy, "What do you want to teach me?"

"As you may know, the Dark Presence has control of the smurfs," said the Light Presence, "What you don't know is that the darkness created in which helps it manage its minions more efficiently, let me explain it as simple as possible."

"Okay." said Snappy, interested in what the Light Presence was going to tell him.

"As you may know, there are the blue smurfs, your kind of course, and the green smurfs, your kind's successor. Each faction are linked to a single leader, the most powerful of the group. All the blue smurfs are linked to Papa Smurf as the green smurfs are linked to Chernov. I've seen you and your friends kill Handy back at the Smurf Village, truth is he's not actually dead."

"What?"

"He re-spawned near Papa Smurf, which he's nowhere near the village at that time. No matter how many times you defeat a smurf, they'll simply re-spawn near him. If you're going to defeat the Taken, you gotta defeat the leaders."

Snappy was a bit confused by what the Light Presence had just said, it took him a moment to full understand his plan, "So you're saying that everytime I kill a Taken, they'll respawn?"

"Yes." said the Light Presence.

"And in order to defeat them for good," continued Snappy, "I have to defeat the leaders of their designated species."

"Look at you," said the Light Presence with encouragement, "All smart and mature. Here's the most important task you must accomplish, you must find the Lady of the Light."

"The Lady of the Light?"

"Yes, you must find here if you wanna stand a chance against the Dark Presence, its the only way."

"Where should I start?"

You must kill both of the Taken leaders before finding her, once they're dead her location will be revealed to you. Oh, and Snappy."

"Yeah?"

"Wall."

Something struck Snappy hard, causing him to fly backwards, hitting a solid object. It wasn't long before he wakes up from his dream and saw what's happening in reality.

He found himself face down on the floor, Snappy recalled he had been on the couch. He looked u and saw Dashie pointing a gun in his face, behind her was the chouch he had been sleeping on last night. His friends however, were nowhere in sight, "Ugh," she groaned, "You smurflings are more trouble than you worth."

Snappy saw a green smurf about to grab his backpack, the shock stunned his heart to the core. The pages, he thought.

Despite having a gun pointed at him, Snappy darted towards his backpack and tried to wrestle it out of the hands of the green smurf. The green smurf was cooh-headed about it and was about to let go, however Dashie kicked Snappy in the forehead, knocking him backwards and onto the floor crying. "For dad's sake Dashie!" gasped the green smurf in surprise.

"Take Snappy to the rest of the smurflings," said Dashie, "Lock him up with the rest of him, I'll take a look at what he was trying to protect."

Snappy cried in humiliation as the green smurf takes him away, loosing the pages felt even worse. He hadn't got a chance to read them all, now he's afraid on what will happen next. He told himself to stay calm, Snappy is the leader and so he must assess the situation.

When the green smurf took him outside, he saw green smurfs everywhere. They all looked bored, probably they had nothing to do so Dashie took advantage of their free time. Snappy could see Sassette in one of many smurfvees but wasn't able to see the others, the green smurf took him to the lead smurfvee and opened the door, the cab had been caged and it was empty.

"I'm sorry Snappy," said the green smurf as he sat him inside, "I only wish there's more I could do for you."

The green smurf shuts the smurfvee and left Snappy alone after that, it wasn't long before a green smurfette came by and got behind the wheel of the smurfvee. "Just sit tight and enjoy the ride." she said nicely.

"Where you're taking me?" asked Snappy.

"GSV 8," said the green smurfling, "Dashie ordered each and everyone of you to be separated so you wouldn't come up with a plan to escape."

The green smurfs took the Smurflings back to the colony, the trip felt like forever. Snappy asked the green smurfette how they were able to find them, she said they were able to smell where they had been. He wonders if Cherskey and Nelly also have such a strong sense of smell.

When they arrived, they drove through Green Smurf Village 8 and stopped at one of the many prisons that dot the area. The green smurfs got out and took the Smurflings inside. It was a small prison, just a few cells and a small desk at the far corner. It kinda looked like a wild western jail, except its modern. The Smurflings were taken to a far back of the prison and placed them in the cell, inside was a simply a couple of cots, an old sink, and a crummy toilet, nothing more.

It wasn't long before they were soon were regrouped with the twins. Cherskey appeared to be knocked out cold, Nelly appeared disturbed as she was brought into the cell. A green smurf laid down the unconscious Cherskey onto the cot in the cell. Then he stepped out as the green smurfs shut the cell doors and locked it, "Lets leave them alone guys," said a green smurf, "They had enough for one day."

As the green smurfs leave the prison, the Smurflings began to think they never even want to do this. Seeing Cherskey knocked out part of the story, "What happened to Cherskey?" asked Snappy.

"Dashie knocked him out," said Nelly as she held her brother's hand, "He tried to defend us, but Dashie got the better of him. I can't believe she got to you last."

"I saw you crying when the green smurf carried you out of the barracks," said Sassette, "What did Dashie do to you?"

"She confiscated the pages," said Snappy, "Every single one of them, that's what I was mostly upset about."

"There's a bruise on your forehead." noted Sassette.

"I fought for the pages and I lost," said Snappy, "We gotta get the pages back."

"She'll might confront us soon," said Nelly, "All we have to do now is wait."

"We'll wait for somesmurf to come," said Snappy, "Even if it takes all day."

For hours, the Smurflings sat and wait for Dashie to come. In the meanwhile, they listened to the bustling activity outside. The rumblings of machinery, smurfvees, and conversations between green smurfs. It was boring being trapped in the prison cell, but the Smurflings hadn't lost their minds.

Occasionally, Cherskey would stir and grumble something under his breath. He sounded like he was dreaming, neither of the Smurflings wanna know what he was dreaming about. Nat managed to find a corner and sits tight there, Slouchy sat back on the other cot and also tried to nap, Sassette tend to Cherskey along with Nelly, Snappy walked up to the bars and kept a lookout for anyone.

At least it wasn't dark, or the Smurflings would be squirming underneath it. They knew that the Dark Presence might attack them in the darkness, they doubt anyone would be able to help them.

As the hours come and go, the Smurflings felt starved and thirsty. They wondered where are the other green smurfs at, had they forgotten about them? The Smurflings were able to quench their thirst from the sink, it kept them going and helped them stayed focused. Again, Cherskey mumbled unintelligible speech, then managed to croon out some words. "No, the other one." he simply said.

Listening to Cherskey talk in his sleep was the only entertainment the Smurflings ever got, its better than staring at the bulb on the ceiling that lights up their cell. No one was able to come up with great stories, Nelly was in no mood to tell anything since Cherskey was hurt at the moment. Snappy wondered if Nelly was feeling more emotional strain than the other Smurflings, that might reveal itself when the time comes.

A few more hours past and the sun was starting to set, when the Smurflings saw it was getting dark they thought they might be attacked. They're vulnerable in the cell, there was no way out. As long as they're in the light, they're safe, but not safe from Dashie's wrath.

Snappy glanced out the small window a second time and saw it was now pitch black, night has arrived. It wasn't long before Cherskey woke up, "Oh god," he muttered, "Oh, my head hurts."

"Brother!" cried Nelly as she placed a hand on his arm, "Cherskey, are you okay?"

"No," said Cherskey, "I have a splitting headache and my tongue feels like a piece of sausage."

When he opened his eyes and saw the cramped cell the Smurflings in, he let out a groan, "Are we in jail?" he asked.

"Yup." said Snappy.

"Oh crap," said Cherskey, "I want Mama."

"I want Mama too," said Nelly, "I'm sure she's alive out there."

"Where is the manuscript Snappy?" asked Cherskey.

"Dashie has it." said Snappy.

"That's even worse." Cherskey contemplated.

"Tell me about it." said Snappy sarcastically.

They heard a door open at the far edge of the jail and heard Dashie and Rick's voice, all the Smurflings were silent as they listen to the unfolding conversation. "Why did you lock them up Dashie?" asked Rick, "You haven't interviewed them yet."

"I had to do some reading first," said Dashie, "And trust me, it was a good read."

"What?" asked Rick.

"I found these manuscript pages on Snappy," said Dashie, "Clearly it wasn't their handwriting, but it explained what had happened."

Dashie and Rick walked into view and stopped in front of them, "Well, well snot nose brats," sneered Dashie as she held up the manuscript in her hand, the Smurflings felt a lump settling in the pit of their stomach from seeing it, "Here it is, all the evidence, including the conspiracy for the murder of Smurfette."

"Dashie, I swear," said Rick, "If Chernov is here, he'll have your ass for this."

"Chernov's not here." said Dashie.

"But I am," said Cherskey as he got up from the cot, "I'll do the job for him."

Cherskey jump onto the bars and madly try to muscle the cell bars apart, "How cute," taunted Dashie, "These cell bars are designed to lock up green smurfs."

"You know what Dashie," said Rick, "Screw you."

Rick pulled out the keys to the Smurfling's cell and unlocked it, "What are you doing?" Dashie asked.

"I'm letting them out," said Rick, he turned his attention back to the Smurflings, "I'm going to trust you in this guys."

That was when Dashie pulled out her gun and aimed it at the Smurflings, "Stay in your cell you little twerps!" she warned.

"Dashie," said Rick, "Put the gun down, we can talk this over."

"The only way these Smurflings are getting outta here is through my dead-"

Dashie stopped mid-sentence and lowers her gun, "Wait a sec," she grumbled as she flipped through a few pages of the manuscript until she found one in particular, "I know this."

The lights flickered and went out, the ground shook as a large hole opened up through the ceiling. A thick oily black cloud grabbed Dashie, she screamed as she was pulled out of the prison through the roof. She dropped the manuscript, its pages scatter all over the concrete floor.

Rick's eyes shrink as he watch Dashie vanished into the night, her screams took a moment to subside as the rumbling dies down. It was all over when the lights came back on.

"Rick," said Snappy, "Where's our stuff?"

Rick didn't answer right away, he snapped out of his haze before responding, "Uhh, its back at the Command Center., what the hell was that thing anyway?"

"The Dark Presence," said Sassette, "We need light to fight this thing."

"I'll take you guys back to the Command Center," said Rick, "The colony must be warned of this thing. The sooner I could get to my radio, the better."

Rick opened the cell door and the Smurflings proceed to gather up all the manuscript pages that Dashie dropped, they handed it back to Snappy as he reorganized it in the correct order. He eventually found the page detailing Dashie being snatched up by the Dark Presence, he read the page out loud to everyone.

_When Rick unlocked the Smurfling's cell door, Dashie drew her gun to prevent them from getting out. She was going to say she won't let the Smurflings leave over her dead body until a thought stopped her. She had seen this moment before, in the manuscript page._

_Dashie got the page out and took a look at it, just to make sure she wasn't mistaken. Awhile caught in the midst of déjà vu, the Dark Presence came down from the ceiling and snatched her up, before dragging her off into the night."_

"How many manuscript pages did you find already?" asked Rick.

"We found a lot," said Cherskey, "About 75 pages to be exact."

"I don't recall finding that many pages in our path." said Nelly.

"I found a couple dozen awhile you guys were sleeping last night," said Snappy, "Interesting stuff I found on them."

"Lets stop wasting time guys," said Sassette, "The Dark Presence will soon come back for us!"

**TO BE CONTINUED...**

"_What would it take to turn this into a win?" he asked._

_Chad and Judd searched the area, flashlights primed to their max. They were on patrol the night the Smurflings were chased out of the colony by Dashie, the two green smurfs were task into finding the little smurfs. "I don't know," said Judd, "I figure we fail do to the lack of leadership."_

"_Why did you say that?" asked Chad, "We managed to function in this anarchy."_

"_That's because everyone knows each other," said Judd, "Its just-"_

_A loud roar ripped through the air, spooking the green smurfs as the trees shook their branches. "What was that?" asked Chad._

_Before they knew it, a large old growth oak tree toppled over them, hammering the two incompetent green smurfs into the ground._


	16. Chapter 16

**Disclaimer: I do not own any characters that were created by someone else**

**Claimer: Go to my profile to view my characters**

The Smurfling heads outside as Rick follows them, he managed to locate the smurfvee and had all the Smurflings get in. Snappy got into the passenger seat up front as Rick got into the driver's seat. He started up the engine, and they were off back to GSV 1. As they drive, the Smurflings watched as many outdoor LED lights passed by, illuminating the road ahead of them. "I'm sorry guys," said Rick, "I just have to tell Smurfette's death on the radio, it doesn't seem right keeping it a secret to the Green Smurf Colony. Besides, they trust me on this kind of information to be delivered pronto to them."

"Its okay Rick," said Snappy, "It wasn't entirely your fault, the manuscript page said you would."

"It did?" he asked.

Snappy pulled out the manuscript page and read it to him.

_It had been a day after he was given the heartbreaking news, Rick was trying his best to stay away from the alcohol, he didn't want to become like Dashie. After hours of being tormented by his guilty conscious, he finally snapped. He got onto his HAM radio after it finished playing a popular song and broke the news to the entire colony, it wasn't just his fellow green smurfs who were listening._

_The Smurflings had their radio on, and heard Rick broke their promise. Dashie heard it too, she thinks this is a good excuse to get rid of the Smurflings. She never liked them, even if some of them are related to her in some way. Hearing the news made her think that this is a good excuse to execute them, to get rid of them for good. This was her moment._

_After Rick finished delivering the news, he turned his HAM radio off and head out for the liquor store, maybe some moonshine would clear his mind out for once._

"I feel like I had been used," said Rick, he gripped the steering wheel tightly to relieve some stress, "Its not because it was personal, its because we're not in control. No one, not even the Dark Presence, is control. We're all trapped in this story someone has written, bond to its events stronger than glue. Being an information junkie like Chernov, I think we may be near the climax."

"A climax?" asked Snappy.

"The peak of the story," said Rick, "The climax can span several chapters, if this manuscript has any chapters. Since your the main characters, its up to you to save us all."

"We need to find the Lady of the Light," said Snappy, "In order to do that, we must take out the Taken leaders or her location will remain unknown to us."

"Who are the leaders?" asked Rick.

"Papa Smurf and Chernov," said Snappy, "As long as they live, the Taken are immortal. If we kill them both, they all go along with them."

"Now I'm scared out of my mind," said Rick, "This is all too surreal for me to handle."

"Where did you come up with this plan Snappy?" asked Cherskey.

"I had a dream where this ball of light told me to do so," said Snappy, "It calls itself, The Light Presence, it was trying to help me."

"Anything is possible under the power of the manuscript," said Cherskey, "I believe your word for it."

The group managed to reach the Command Center without incident, Rick parks the smurfvee and everyone got out. They head back inside and the Smurflings found their backpacks on the round table counter, "If you're going to go into Taken territory," said Rick, "You're going to need these."

Rick opened a box and handed each smurfling a portable spotlight, they could tell it had batteries do to their weight. "Thanks Rick." said Sassette.

"Your welcome," said Rick, "I just hope you smurfs are alright by the time this is all over."

"Where are we going to find the Taken leaders anyway?" asked Nat.

"The Smurf Village," said Sassette, "We'll find Papa Smurf there, I'm not sure where Chernov is."

"How can you assume where Papa Smurf is and not Chernov?" asked Rick.

"The Light Presence says that Papa Smurf is near there," said Snappy, "Besides, its the very place where this nightmare had started."

"Which means its a hotspot for the Dark Presence," said Slouchy, "We need some firearms."

"Here's some." said Rick.

He opened a nearby footlocker and pulled out several pistols equipped with tactical lights, he handed each smurfling one and also handed them some ammunition clips. "There should be more supplies in the smurfvee," said Rick, "You take it and head back to the Smurf Village, be back here when you're done."

"Okay Rick." said Snappy.

"I hope you know what you're doing Snappy." said Nelly.

"Truth is Nelly," said Snappy, "I don't have a plan, I'm following the guidance of a dream here. I don't know if its right, I don't know if its wrong, all I know is that its better than waiting for the Dark Presence to come after us."

"Like I said Snappy," said Cherseky, "I believe your word for it."

"Now would you excuse me," said Rick, "I have to run the important errands, I'll hopefully see you guys later."

As Rick tends to warning the colony, the Smurflings grabbed their backpacks and head out the Command Center, Snappy placed the manuscript back into its folder before placing it back into his backpack. As the Smurflings got in, Snappy hops behind the wheel of the smurfvee and started up its engine before driving off. Snappy turned on the head and roof lights as they drove into the forest, "I wonder how much light we need to destroy the Dark Presence entirely." said Snappy.

"A big flash from an atom bomb will do the job just fine," said Cherskey, "But since it would destroy everything as we know it, we're going to have to use an alternative."

The drive to the Smurf Village was just as long as last time, some of the Smurflings fell asleep awhile Snappy continued down the road. He kept on going, not stopping for anything. He drove past the outpost where they found Brainy, the very outpost where he was taken. Snappy tried to ignore it, yet a flashback haunted him to the core.

Just before they were near the village, Snappy was force to stop. "Hey smurfs," he said as he slows the car down, "You gotta take a look at this."

The Smurflings woke up and saw the downed behemoth oak tree blocking their path, it was so massive that they couldn't look over it. "Whoa," said Sassette, "Is this the Great Oak Tree?"

"I think it is," said

Just as Snappy stops, he saw shadowy figures drop down from the top of the blockage and onto the ground, with machetes and hatchets drawn. "Taken!" cried Snappy as he shift the smurfvee into reverse, "Four of them!"

Four blue smurf Taken rushed towards the Smurflings as Snappy floors the smurfvee into reverse, he brightened the headlights and repelled the Taken back with its lights. "Stop the smurfvee Snappy," said Cherseky, "Let us out!"

Snappy shifts the smurfvee into park and turned off the engine, there the Smurflings got out, turned on the spotlights Rick gave them, and went into battle. The spotlights did great work in destroying the dark shrouds of the Taken and the Smurflings quickly gunned them down within seconds, as the last of the Taken vanished the Smurflings regrouped as Snappy comes up with a plan, "We're going to have to find a way around the tree," said Snappy, "Follow me."

"If only I spent my free time exploring this place." grumbled Cherskey, confirming Snappy's theory.

The Smurflings started to walk around the tree, a closer inspection revealed it was indeed the Great Oak Tree, but what had cut it down? It was dangerous for the Smurflings to go off the trail, but the forest were no stranger to them. For once however, they feel like they don't belong here anymore, all the love and affection was replace with evil. They don't let that thought overcome them though, they are set to fulfill their destiny.

They walked through the forest, not stopping for anything. By the time the Smurflings got around the tree, they saw the root system of the Great Oak Tree exposed for all to see. It wasn't cut down, it was knocked over with a massive force. Whatever it was, the Smurflings think they had their suspect.

Looking up in the sky, the Smurflings saw the stars glowing brightly. The moon was in a waning crescent, seeing how clear the skies and hearing the mating calls of the crickets reminded the Smurflings of times before the Dark Presence, "Remember that time we all sat underneath the stars and gaze at the constelations," asked Sassette, "Back at the Smurf Village were everything was peaceful."

"Yeah," said Snappy, "Those were smurfy times."

"More stars than the eye could see," said Cherskey, "More than what my telescope can see also."

"Those were good times," said Nat, "It felt like we all own the night."

"Remember when a shooting star zipped across the sky and we all made a wish," said Sassette, "What did you wish for?"

"I don't know," said Snappy, "I forgot."

"I wished for a beautiful garden." said Nat.

"I wished for a massage chair." said Slouchy.

"I wished for true love." said Nelly.

"I wished y'all appreciate life more," said Cherskey, "I guess my wish came true."

"I never felt luckier to be alive right now," said Sassette, "We've gotten this far, we all survived."

"You know," said Cherskey, "With the Dark Presence in all, this isn't a total disaster."

"It's not?" asked the Smurflings in unison.

"All the adults are gone," said Cherskey, "Which means, no more rules, no more bad consequences. We can start over and rebuilt the Smurf Village to what we see fit, we can make it better than before."

"I see your vision Cherskey," said Snappy, "Maybe you should lead the village."

"I would but," said Cherskey, "With Chernov gone, I feel discouraged, I don't know what to do once we survive."

"We can continue dad's work Cherskey," said Nelly, "He brought us in the world to do great things, we can start over from there."

Snappy's light beam came across another manuscript page, sitting on the ground. He approached it and picked it up, after skimming through it he tried his best to hold in his laughter, "This page talks about looking forward for the future," said Snappy, "Oh the irony."

The Smurflings laughed, the moment was great for taking a break from the nightmare, the same old world soon reinserted itself when they heard a familiar, yet distorted, voice ripple through the air. "My little smurfs," the voice spoke, "How... nice... and ORGANIZED... you are, you make me PROUD. For this ENTIRE WEEK, there had been no fighting, no QUARRELS, no problems... whatsoever. Keep up THE GOOD WORK!"

"Run." said Snappy calmly, "Say nothing, just run."

With their pulse racing, the Smurflings ran through the forest with their flashlights leading the way. "REMEMBER THE IMPORTANT rule," said the voice as it echos through the air, "Never... g-go to Gaaargameel's HOVEL, it is... STRIGHTLY... forbidden!"

The Smurflings run faster as the voice grows closer, "If you keep the dam in good condition, we won't HAVE ANY floods! If you neglect the... dam as you once did, it can be a... FATAL... mistake."

Now the Smurflings were running as fast as their little legs could take them, now the voice was impossibly close, "SMURF along with me, smurfing as CAN BE!"

The Smurflings burst into a clearing, and into the sight of many Taken. "Stay away from my garden!" yelled a Taken in a demonic voice as it held up a pitchfork, hinting that the Taken was Farmer Smurf.

With no time to loose, the Smurflings shined their spotlights at the Taken, stripping their darkness one by one. When their protection was down, the Smurflings shot at them until they vanished into light. Farmer Smurf kept marching at the Smurflings despite having some lights trained at him, when his dark shroud went down it took a few bullets for Farmer to follow suit.

"It takes TRIAL... and... ERROR... for you to accomplish... SUCCESS!" said the voice again, "Appreciate THE PROCESS!"

The Smurflings kept on running down a small trail, panting loudly as they fight exhaustion. Their hearts strained from hearing the sound of a chainsaw, up ahead they saw a Taken was cutting down a tree with one, "TIMBER!" it roared as the tree toppled over the trail, "All accidents COULD BE prevented!"

"Where did Lumberjack Smurf get a chainsaw?" asked Snappy.

"My dad gave one to him as a gift on Smurf Day," said Cherskey, "Then he went back to his house and never said much after that."

A few more Taken came out of the woods, speaking gibberish as they prepare to attack. It was easy holding off Lumberjack with the spotlights, he was easily pinned in from the bright light. It was better to have him wield a chainsaw than the big green smurfs they faced at the colony.

A Taken tossed its hatchet at Cherskey, he dodged with lightning reflexes as it lands in the dirt. He retaliated by shining the flashlight into the Taken's eyes, awhile stunned Cherskey stripped off the Taken's darkness and killed him outright. Lumberjack soon went down after Nelly pulled off the darkness and pumped him full of lead, he vanished in a light-show along with the chainsaw.

With the Taken gone, the Smurflings could now proceed. Since the tree Lumberjack cut down wasn't that thick, they were able to climb up and over it. As they ran, something zipped by in an illusion, startling the Smurflings. "More tele-flankers?" asked Snappy.

"Yup." said Cherskey.

The Smurflings ran into another clearing, they were shocked when they saw Hefty and Handy stepped out of the shadows. Thick layers of darkness covered their bodies as they wield sharp logging axes. "This makes no sense," said Sassette, "I thought we've killed them."

"They've re-spawned near Papa Smurf." said Snappy.

"Take care of your tools." said Handy.

"Physical labor," said Hefty, "Let's take a... break."

The duo marched towards the Smurflings as they aimed their flashlights at them, the thick layers of darkness proved difficult to remove. Hefty charged at the Smurflings head on as Handy flanked around them, the Smurflings managed to dodge Hefty's rhino charge and Slouchy lit a flare to back him off. The bright light made the process of stripping off his darkness faster, and so it soon flashed off his body altogether.

Snappy fired a few rounds at Hefty as the other smurflings continued to strip off Handy's darkness, once his was removed all the Smurflings let round after round upon them. It took a lot of bullets to defeat them."

After their bodies vanished, the Smurflings were about to leave the clearing when a hatchet came flying by and lodging itself into a tree. They turned and saw numerous Taken coming after them, "When smurfs get tired," crooned a Taken, "They get careless."

"I bet that's Lazy Smurf." said Slouchy.

"Run!" cursed Snappy.

The Smurflings ran back into the forest after numerous hatchets and machetes flew over and past their heads, many of them gets lodged into trees or simply fall flat onto the ground. Cherskey lit a flare and tossed it over his shoulder, it bought the Smurflings time to get away and loose the group of taken for awhile.

They continued running until they approached a much larger clearing, what they have reached was the edge of a cliff. "We're trapped!" cried Nat as he saw no possible means of escape.

Snappy carefully walked over to the very edge of the cliff and looked over, he saw the forest below looking like tiny weeds from the tall height. It was so far down that it caused Snappy to regroup with his friends, not wanting to spend another moment looking out over the landscape below. "What do we do now?" asked Nelly.

"We hold them off as long as they keep coming." said Cherskey.

"My... little... smurfs," said the voice again, "Are you being... GOOD today?"

The Smurflings turned and saw a figure climbing on top of a boulder, it had slightly more layers of darkness than Hefty and was wielding a regular ax. Under the moonlight, the Smurflings noticed the Taken was wearing a red smurf hat and pants, a little closer and they could make out the partial outline of a beard. "We found Papa Smurf." said Sassette.

"Technically," said Snappy, "Papa Smurf found us."

**TO BE CONTINUED...**

_Children of the Elder Smurfs by Chernov Reznov _

_The first verse and chorus:_

_Warriors, torchbearers, come redeem our dreams  
>Shine a light upon this night of otherworldly fiends<br>Grandpa's might be your guide, divorce you from the sane  
>The Smurfs way will have their say, rise up in their name<em>

_Oh, Memory and Thought  
>Jet black and clawed<em>

_Children of the Elder Smurfs  
>Scourge of light upon the dark <em>


	17. Chapter 17

**Disclaimer: I do not own any characters that were created by someone else**

**Claimer: Go to my profile to view my characters**

The Smurflings stood frozen as they stared at Papa Smurf, he stood there on the boulder as the shadows heavily blanketed him. He does nothing, yet. Before the Smurflings made their move, several shadows formed out of thin air between them and Papa Smurf, and mold themselves into the Taken form of Brainy, Hefty, Handy, Greedy, and Painter. They rushed towards the Smurflings with axes held up high, "Papa Smurf likes things to be NIICCEE," yapped Brainy, "That way... we won't have any trouble, and I don't have to... PUNISH ANYBODY!"

Snappy shined his spotlight on Brainy, he throws his arm over his face to shield his eyes from the light as he marched towards him. As Brainy was close to him, his dark shroud flashed and vanished. Next he stunned Brainy with the spotlight, as he grabbed his face Snappy dodged as Hefty tried to chop him with the ax. He missed Snappy, only hitting Brainy instead. The four-eyed Taken burst into static and vanished as Hefty's ax impacted the ground where Brainy once stood.

Hefty pulls his ax out of the ground and tried to swing it at Snappy a second time, Nelly came to his aid and twist a flare, its light repelled Hefty as she held it up in the air like a torch. The other Taken were also effected by the bright light, they shield their eyes and back away as the light eats away at their shadows of darkness. One by one, their protective shrouds vanished and the Smurflings gunned them down without difficulty.

As the last of the Taken vanished, more appeared out of the shadows as Papa Smurf jumps down from the rock. "Surprise!" said one of the Taken in a demonic tone, hinting that the Taken could be Jokey Smurf."

"STOP STRUGGLING!" roared Papa Smurf as he began to move at impossible speeds, his outline blurs as he zipped across the area, "We're all friends here, all you have to do IS TAKE YOUR ANTIDOTE... and you'll be fine!"

Papa Smurf zipped behind Cherskey and tried to hammer down the ax into his skull, Cherskey did a dodge-roll and managed to dodge the ax as it thuds into the ground. The Taken leader pulled it out of the mud and resumes his tele-flanking, "Man, Papa Smurf can move!" contemplated Cherskey.

"Snappy!" cried Nelly, "Here!"

Snappy turned his attention to Nelly and saw her thrown a flare gun to him, he caught it mid-air and aimed it at the large mass of Taken as Papa Smurf was shooting across it. He fired the gun and shot a flare into the Taken crowd, time slows as Snappy watched the flare meet up with Papa Smurf at the right time. It explodes, showering the Taken with light and killing them instantly. Papa Smurf however, was the sole survivor of the flare attack.

Despite surviving it, his dark shroud took up a heavy beating. It was more thinner now, and it was near to malfunctioning. "Look at YOU SMURFS," he barked, "Acting like HUMAN BEINGS, soooo unsmurfy!"

"I think he's referring to you guys," joked Cherskey, "Not me and Nelly since we're half-human."

"This is not a time to joke Cherskey!" snapped Snappy.

"Enjoy the moment," advised Cherskey, "It could be your last."

Snappy ducks as a hatchet flies over his head, it hits another Taken in the forehead behind him before landing on the ground, the Taken was slightly stunned since its dark shrouds protected him from harm. Seeing that, gave Snappy an idea. Due to the fact that there were more and more blue smurf Taken appearing on the scene, and since they are attacking as a mass group of individuals, why not used the Taken's range attacks to his own advantage?

He pulled out a flare and twisted it, Snappy rushed into a crowd of Taken as they scream out unintelligible speech. He held the flare over his head as the Taken backed away from him, but not before having their dark shrouds removed. Snappy ducked again as a knife cane flying over his head, it hit a Taken without a shroud of darkness and it died upon contact. The other smurflings caught on with Snappy's strategy, and tried their best to imitate it.

Papa Smurf came zipping around again and tried to chop Snappy, he managed to dodge it as the Taken leader slashed the air with his ax. Snappy stunned Papa Smurf with his spotlight's beam and twist another flare, he rushed behind Papa Smurf and tried to smash the lit end of the flare into his back. Snappy could see the dark shadows burn madly, Papa Smurf tele-flanked out of there before he could finished and the flare sizzled out.

"Remember to COOPERATE with your fellow SMURFS!" said Papa Smurf, "Never... go out on YOUR OWN!"

"We can't waste anymore time Snappy," said Nat, "There's too many Taken here already!"

Indeed, Snappy could see more coming down the trail they used to get here. There were already hordes of them, maybe a 100 Taken smurfs are here already. Nat's right, they must take out Papa Smurf now or be overwhelmed by the Dark Presence's minions.

A loud squawk broke Snappy's concentration and Cherskey tackled him to the ground, he doesn't have to ask why as he saw a large crane covered with thick darkness comes swooping down before regaining altitude. "Feathers," said Cherskey, "We gotta take out Feathers."

Feathers circled above as Cherskey pulled out his own flare gun, he aimed it at Feathers as he was about to come after them in another swoop. He fired, the flare shot into the sky and struck Feathers in the chest, the possessed crane let out a scream that pierced the Smurfling's ears as it disintegrates into light before vanishing. As the sparkles from what's left of Feathers fades away, the flare Cherskey killed him with came floating back down to earth and eats away at the Taken's dark shrouds, removing some of them.

Among the Taken, Sassette could make out a familiar Taken holding an ax. It appeared female, it spoke gibberish as it came after her. "Smurfette?" asked Sassette.

She aimed her spotlight at the Taken and kept it pinned down, when its dark shroud was removed Sassette got a better view of the Taken. It was Smurfette alright, she looked like her evil self. Her hair was black as her dress was covered in her own blood, her eyes were so dark that it caused Sassette to unload a whole clip into her, she kept pulling the trigger after Smurfette vanished into nothing.

Papa Smurf came zipping by Snappy tried to swing at him again, this time Snappy concentrated the beam at Papa Smurf long enough for his dark shroud to vanish completely. Ironically, all the other Taken's dark shrouds flashed off their bodies, leaving them all exposed to conventional weapons. The Taken leader took a step back to redeem itself, then he came after Snappy with his ax.

As Snappy guns Papa Smurf down, Cherskey went trigger happy and started shooting at the other Taken like wildfire. Each round he fired struck one and killed it instantly, they were going down like flies. "You like that!" he cursed, "I bet that hurts a lot!"

Papa Smurf managed to withstand a lot of rounds, Snappy had to reload twice awhile fighting him. Before he was able to deliver the last shots, Snappy was whacked in the face with a hard club and collapsed onto the ground. "You can tell theirs berries by observing the birds!" roared a possessed Grandpa Smurf as he tried to swing his cane at Snappy again.

Snappy dodged it and fired a few shots at Grandpa Smurf, he stepped back as Papa Smurf came running at Snappy with his ax. Before he was able to clobber Snappy, Sassette came in and stunned Paps with her flashlight. Grandpa Smurf was soon taken down by Slouchy as he fired repeatedly at his chest and head. "Sorry Pappy," said Sassette as she backed away, Snappy aimed his pistol at Papa Smurf's head and fired.

The Taken leader burst into sparkling lights before disappearing without a trace, a few seconds later all of the blue smurf Taken burst into static and vanished, including their weapons. Snappy stood at the spot where Papa Smurf had been and saw a manuscript page in his place, he watched as it floated down to earth and gently landed on the ground.

Cherskey approached Snappy and lend out a hand, he grabbed it and Cherskey helped him up, "What a night," said Cherskey, "You thought you were a goner there?"

"Yeah." said Snappy.

"We did it!" cheered Nelly.

"Now we have dad to take care of," said Cherskey, "Seeing how he fought wars made me wonder, what will it take to defeat him."

The Smurflings approach the cliff's edge and sat down, they stared out into the large open forest below them awhile listening to the crickets chirp. "What a view," said Nat, "Home seem to be long gone but, some things are just the way we remembered."

"The Lady of the Light," said Snappy, "I wonder what she's like."

Snappy got up and approached the manuscript page and picked it up, he went back to his friends and sat down before reading the manuscript page out loud:

_Rick waits for the Smurflings return, he got on the radio and had his fellow green smurfs get into position. He sense the Dark Presence approaching, they had more light available than heaven. Fearing that it may not be enough, Rick had all the lights in all the spiderholes to be turned on, the power plants stepped up their production of power to adjust to demand. _

_I hope we would make it tonight, he thought._

Snappy put the manuscript page with the rest of the pages and got to his feet, "Lets go find the smurfvee guys," he said, "Let's head back to the Green Smurf Colony."

"Right away?" asked Cherskey.

"The sooner, the better." said Snappy.

The Smurflings got up and head back towards the road, they were relieved on not to find any Taken trying to stop them this time. With all of the blue smurfs now gone forever, the Smurflings are only worried about the green smurf Taken. The Dark Presence will probably not waste any time in trying to reposition its forces, instead the entity might reposition them in a place where the Smurflings will head to. In other words, a full scale assault on the colony was imminent.

When they arrived back at the road, they managed to find the smurfvee, left untouched by the Dark Presence. They quickly got in, started up the engine, and took off down the road, leaving only the Great Oak tree behind.

**TO BE CONTINUED...**

_Children of the Elder Smurfs by Chernov Reznov _

_The second verse and chorus:_

_Scratching hag, you can rake your claws and gnash your crooked teeth  
>You've taken slaves like ocean waves, now feel the ocean seethe<br>Papa Smurf, bless this war, between the dark and light  
>In their songs let their wrongs bring dissolution's night<em>

_Oh, Memory and Thought  
>Jet black and clawed<em>

_Children of the Elder Smurfs  
>Scourge of light upon the dark <em>


	18. Chapter 18

**Disclaimer: I do not own any characters that were created by someone else**

**Claimer: Go to my profile to view my characters**

The drive back to the Green Smurf Colony wasn't as smooth as the Smurflings expected, as the Dark Presence was trying to stop them. Snappy had to serve around debris, sections of I-beam girders and sharpened logs made by green smurfs, were launched into the air and embed themselves in the road like spears. He had only a split second to serve around them, sweat made the steering wheel slippery, its a wonder he was able to maintain control.

They could feel them impact the ground before seeing them, giving them some warning before they actually saw it. Dust was kicked up as Snappy served around them, he felt the adrenaline ripping off the veins in the legs every time he serve around a projectile.

As they near the colony, many green smurf Taken blocked their path. The headlights plus the roof lights of the smurfvee easily plowed off their dark shrouds as the Smurflings charged through, running many of them over without much problems.

"I swear Snappy," said Sassette, "If all hope seems lost, do we have some insurance to rely on?"

"I don't know," said Snappy, "The green smurfs might have something we could rely at at their colony, but I doubt it."

Just when they saw the faint glow of the colony's artificial lights, the Smurflings looked behind them and saw what looked to be a cloud of darkness, barreling dead on straight for them. "Step on it Snappy!" cried Slouchy.

Snappy floored the gas petal and took the smurfvee to maximum speed, but it wasn't enough as the Dark Presence was gaining on them. "We're screwed, we're screwed!" cried Nelly.

Just before the dark cloud was able to engulf them, green smurfs suddenly appeared out of the bushes and shot flares into the cloud. The bright light was able to drive the darkness back, buying time for the Smurflings as they drove into the Green Smurf Colony. "Close save," said Snappy as he looked through the rear-view mirror, a green smurf held a lit flare over his head to keep the darkness back.

The Smurflings saw the Green Smurf Colony was bustling with activity, every green smurf they saw was armed with a flashlight and a gun. Many of them had flare guns, others had Christmas lights wrapped around their torsos like barbarians. Nelly thought it was silly, Cherskey knew its much more than that.

When they reached the Command Center, they parked the smurfvee at the curb and quickly got out. They ran inside and almost ran into Rick as he was just about to walk out the door, "Oh thank god," he said, "You scared me there."

"We took care of Papa Smurf," said Snappy, "Now its just Chernov."

"I have to ask," said Rick, "Do you know what's that howling wind coming from?"

The Smurflings heard a loud constant drone, having experience with Mother Nature, they knew what it was, "It's a tornado," said Snappy, "The Dark Presence's true form."

"Oh," grumbled Rick, "We're going to be sucked into oblivion after this."

A loud roar ripped across the colony, spooking the smurfs as they heard a tree topple over and land in a hard thud. "Oh this is bad." said Rick, "Follow me smurfs."

The Smurflings followed Rick outside as they ran down the paved road, "Where we going?" asked Snappy.

"To the front lines," said Rick, "This isn't a conventional war, so we're improvising."

Figures, thought Snappy sarcastically.

When they reached the front, they saw the green smurfs had erected two small towers, each had a mounted searchlight on them. The trenches below the platforms were lined with Christmas mini-lights as flares, flash-bangs, and flare gun ammo littered the trench. A green smurf arms a 2 mm machine gun equipped with a powerful tactical light, a green smurfette held a rifle also equipped with a tactical light as she sat on a wooden chair, Snappy note that all this may not do any good.

Beyond the trenches was a few meters of barren no-man's land, beyond that was vegetation and old-growth oak trees. Above, the skies were botched with shadows, covering some of the light from the stars. "Some night," said a green smurf before he chugged some beer, "Better than those nights awhile fighting red smurfs."

Snappy looked up at one of the two small towers, a green smurfette occupying it had an overhead lamp covering her with light. Smart move on her part, the Taken won't touch her as she keeps a light shined on them. The other tower had an overhead light as well, the obese green smurf arming the searchlight appeared bored, maybe he ran out of booze. He kicked one of the empty beer bottles as he sits back in his chair, it fell to the ground as he fixated a gaze out into the night.

"Okay," said Rick, "Everything is set, the Dark Presence should be attacking at any moment now."

A green smurf came by and handed the Smurflings each an SIR and heavy-duty spotlights, they all received it without question and turned the spotlights on. Having forgotten their weapons in the smurfvee, it was luck that a green smurf was able to resupply them. Chances are, this won't happen a second time.

One moment, the no-man's land was empty. The next, was soon flooded with shadows. Several green smurfs came from behind and join the group as they watch the shadows, merging together and molding themselves into the humanoid green smurf form, to form the Taken. They calmly marched out of the vegetation, they weren't in a rush, nor were they taking their time either.

"You don't lament the loss of hair of one who has been de-headed!" a taken quoted, speaking out all that's left of its former self.

The green smurfs were unfazed by seeing the enemy as one of their own, they had fought these shades 6 months back and are willing to do so again. "Open fire!" Rick gave the order.

As they were told, the green smurfs shined their flashlights at the Taken. To back them up, the searchlights were trained at the ones in the far back, they were almost instantly blasted away by the powerful light beams. When many of their dark shrouds flashed and vanished, the machine-gunner fired at will and took out the Taken with ease. The first wave was easy, but it was going to get harder.

When the second wave attacked, a couple of tele-flankers were zipping all over the place. Snappy's keen eye could tell that the tele-flankers were green smurflings, it makes sense to move in impossible speeds since they're far more weaker than adults. Again, the green smurfs weren't fazed that some of their youngins were Taken, they know that they cannot be saved and so they're dead to them.

It didn't take much for a searchlight to cross one of them and vaporized it instantly, the other tele-flanker was stopped when its dark shroud was removed. Despite the lost of protection, the green smurfling Taken turned towards the defending smurfs. Its eyes glisten with shadows as it charged at them with a sickle, screaming mad gibberish at the top of its lungs.

A single shot from Rick's rifle took it out, the Smurflings watched as the Taken dissolves into crystallized lights before vanishing without a trace. "I think these are the green smurfs who were sent by Dashie to find you smurflings," said Rick, "I knew you wouldn't be able to take out full regiments of green smurfs and lived to tell the tale."

"Thanks for the info." said Cherskey.

"The irony is," said Rick, "They're still following orders."

Indeed, the green smurf Taken in their former lives were ordered to locate the Smurflings, even killing them if they pose a threat to their personal safety. Now the Dark Presence controls them, their objective unchanged. It was the best humor Cherskey heard in awhile, it took a moment for Snappy to understand completely.

The third wave of Taken soon arrived, this time they had a couple of obese green smurfs armed with chainsaws. If that wasn't intimidating enough, there were a small group of Taken armed with logging axes right behind them. "Chainsaws are noisy!" one of the chainsaw-wielding Taken said.

"Oh crap," said Rick, "Was that Greg? He always complain about the noise chainsaws make."

"That's definitely Greg," said a green smurf, "Or was Greg."

A green smurfette shot a flare gun at the Taken, the two big ones were blasted backwords as some of their comrades behind them were incinerated by the light. The searchlights were kept trained on the chainsaw Taken, it took awhile for their thick dark shrouds to be removed. The machine-gunner loaded the two Taken with a lot of bullets, it took so much before they were finally killed.

"Well that ate up a lot of ammo," said the machine-gunner as he reload the 2 mm, "Can somebody find me more 2 mm ammunition? I'm running low here."

The Dark Presence roared a mournful cry, the ground shook as all the lights plugged into the power grid went out. It doesn't take an electrician to figure out what had happened, "Looks like a power surge." said Rick.

Cherskey did a face-palm and grumbled underneath his breath about Rick's stupidity. As quickly as they went out, the lights flickered back on and confidence was restored, but the danger level remain when the group found out what they were going to face next.

"What's that?" asked a green smurfette.

At the far distance of no-man's land, the green smurfs saw a Taken, but not just any ordinary Taken. It was hard to make out its green smurf features, the darkness covering the possessed green smurf was vastly thicker than the ones wielding chainsaws. He clutched a logging ax in its hand, Snappy could tell it had already claimed a victim. What was more frightening, the Taken was familiar.

The height was the biggest giveaway, so is the faint silhouette of the camouflage jacket the Taken was wearing. Standing twice the height of the Smurflings, and being slightly taller than their adult counterparts, the green smurfs felt cold sweat dribbling down their necks when it spoke.

"You don't recognize me do you comrades?" The Taken spoke, "Especially you smurflings."

Oh smurf, thought Snappy.

This was different, normally the Taken don't speak to their potential victims, just random gibberish and quotes from their former lives. However, this Taken was talking to them, taunting them. It doesn't take a genius to figure out who it was.

"Chernov?" asked Rick, "Oh sh#t, open fire!"

The green smurfs hesitated, but they soon obey. They had two searchlights trained on him, followed by a dozen flashlights and portable spotlights. Chernov held his ground as the light blasts the thick darkness off of him. Instead of being burned, it melted into a liquid and splattered dark puddles all around him. It took Snappy to realize that the puddles of sludge were just like the puddles he and his friends discovered in Papa Smurf's house.

The table saw sound was three-times louder when light eats away at Chernov's dark shroud, despite being at the lowest pitch possible. Just as the pitch heightens a little, both searchlights trained at him flicker and went out.

"Oh sh#t." cursed Rick.

Feeling their underwears are soiling, the green smurfs abandoned their posts and retreated back into the colony in a state of panic. The Smurflings, seeing that their light sources aren't enough to stop Chernov, retreated with them. As they ran through the colony, lights around them flicker and pop. Just when they made a turn, GSV 1 was dark and Chernov was right there waiting for them.

"Haven't you LEARNED," said Chernov, "That retreating is a SIGN of fear, when you outnumber YOUR OPPONENT!"

Snappy tried to stun Chernov with his spotlight, it didn't faze the Taken leader, his face shows that he was rather annoyed than stunned. All the other green smurfs and smurflings trained their lights at Chernov, he held an arm up to shield his eyes as he marches towards them, ready to chop them with his ax. "Dad," called out Cherskey, "It's me, Cherskey, your son!"

"He's long gone Cherskey." said Snappy.

"I know," said Cherskey, "I'm just seeing if he still had some reason left in him."

"Apparently not." said Nelly.

As the group backs up, they heard a chainsaw roared behind them. When someone screamed, Snappy turned to see an obese green smurf Taken slashing a green smurf's belly open with the chainsaw in question. His intestines spill onto the road as his body follows suit, once face down on the ground the Taken smashed the end of the chainsaw into the green smurf's back and tore the life out of him. "Don't forget your lunch box!" the Taken said in a demonic tone.

When he quickly shot his attention back at Chernov, he saw him vanished mid-air as the darkness protecting him fades away. "He's gone!" cried Rick.

"And you weren't paying attention." said a green smurfette.

As the green smurf were taking care of the Taken, the Smurflings saw Chernov reappearing near a spider-hole. Cherskey pulled out a flash-bang grenade, pulled out the pin, and tossed it at Chernov. The grenade explode, but it didn't kill him. What it successfully done was stun him, as he gripped his face Nelly fired a flare from her flare gun. The flare engulfed him in a bright powerful light, eating away at his protective dark shroud.

He simply walked out of the flare's range and marched straight at the Smurflings, now they have to come up with another plan.

"What are we going to do, Snappy!" cried Sassette.

"Keep a light trained on him for now," said Snappy, "Don't let up for even a second!"

Snappy knew this battle would take his leadership skills to the test, he had gotten the Smurflings this far, he cannot afford to let them down at this crucial moment.

"Everytime you get in TROUBLE," said Chernov, "I have to sometimes BAIL you OUT! Do you know anything about RESPONSIBILITY!"

The other smurfs were having a hard time dealing with the other Taken, despite driving them back down the road they're having trouble on holding their position. Snappy knew that they must take out Chernov tonight, or the entire colony will be taken over by the Dark Presence.

Figuring out how to remove Chernov's protective darkness was going to be a challenge, even the best portable spotlights did little to burn it away. The Smurflings must try stronger light sources in order to make progress.

As Chernov nears Snappy, about to chop him with his ax, the smurfling twist a flare and tried to repel the Taken leader back. It did him no good, Chernov ignored the flare's light and moved in for the kill.

Snappy dodged the ax blade in time, it nearly got him by hair's length. Chernov put so much force into that ax that the concrete from the road cracked and crumbled upon impact. Seeing it made Snappy's sweat freeze, had he delayed his dodge he could have been crushed or even chopped in half by Chernov's ax. Snappy felt his luck was running out, and so twist another flare for another desperate second try.

The powerful light was working, a flare and 6 spotlights trained at Chernov was starting to bring down his armor. All the lights tossed around the place was distracting Chernov, even blinding him. If they keep this up, they would have his darkness removed within minutes.

"Hey guys!" said Cherskey, "There's a searchlight nearby!"

The Smurflings saw where Cherskey was pointing, a searchlight on top of a wooden tower. It was hooked up to a generator which means it can be powered without the need for the grid.

"Someone smurf the searchlight!" cried Nat.

"Leave it to me." said Snappy.

If Snappy could arm the searchlight, he might be able to strip of Chernov's protective darkness at a considerable rate. Snappy made a run for it as Cherskey stunned Chernov with a flash-bang, he ran as fast as he could and reached the tower, as he climbed up to the top Chernov spot his attempt. That's when Chernov pulled out his signature machete out of his jacket.

A long machete, the length of a smurf's arm, was thick and huge. It had a diamond blade with a 90 degree angle notch below the center of the blade, it's designed to cut flesh and bone, at times it can cut through in a single swipe. What made it vastly unique was its ability to be thrown like a boomerang, and so Chernov let it fly.

"Snappy!" cried Nelly, "Look out!"

Snappy turned and saw the machete repeatedly swirling in the air as it arched towards him, flying through the air like a helicopter blade. His eyes went to the back of his head as Snappy quickly climbed the latter, he heard the blade swish past him, impacting the metal later before flying underneath the tower and out the other side. Sure enough, the blade came flying back to Chernov and he grabbed it by the handle as it appeared to try to cut his head off, then put it away.

Without wasting anymore time, Snappy reached the top of the tower and rushed over to the generator. He yanked on the cord, nothing; he gave it another try, nothing. After a forth, fifth, and sixth try, it still wouldn't start.

"Run you smurf!" Snappy cursed as he yanked of the cord a seventh try, this time as far back as possible.

Finally, the generator roared to life. Above him, Snappy saw the overhead lamp turn on and bathed him in a bright glow of light, not too much to ruin his night vision but just enough to protect him from the Dark Presence. The searchlight came on and glowed in a bright focused beam, Snappy got to the controls and positioned the searchlight over Chernov. The bright beam began to shred Chernov's protective darkness like crazy, like before it caused globs of liquid darkness to fly off of his body and spilled onto the ground like oil.

Snappy's friends below hit the Taken leader with all that they got, flares, spotlights, and flash-bangs. But Chernov was undeterred and continues trying to lodge an ax into their foreheads, but he missed everytime. Seeing how angry he was, reminded Snappy of Cherskey a lot, he made a mental note to tell him at the end of the fight. Assuming that Cherskey will still be alive.

Finally after being under enormous pressure for so long, Chernov's dark shroud flashed off his body. At that very moment, the generator conked out, its searchlight and overhead lamp went dark and dead. Snappy planned to take the role of a sniper, but that idea was long gone when he heard the chainsaw below. Feeling the vibrations of the chainsaw cutting wood, Snappy rushed to the ladder and slid all the way down. When he reached the bottom he saw an obese green smurf Taken finishing off one of the tower's support beams, "Timber!" it roared in a demonic voice as the tower came crashing down.

It landed in a hard thud, the searchlight and generator were tossed aside like toys. Interesting enough, they weren't broken in anyway, thanks to green smurf design. The Taken wielding the chainsaw gave Snappy a glare awhile showing an angry grin, in response Snappy blinded the Taken with his spotlight, stunning him.

Enough nonsense, thought Snappy, Its now or never.

Since the Taken had his dark shroud already removed, maybe by removing Chernov's, Snappy shot it until it burst into static. With that problem taken care of, Snappy turned his attention back to Chernov. In his disbelief, he saw his friends laying round after around at Chernov, just like the lights he was undeterred by the bullets hitting his body.

Snappy turned towards the road and saw many Taken coming straight for them, in fact, it appeared to be hundreds of them. "Snappy!" cried Cherskey.

"I'm on it!" said Snappy.

He spot a loaded flare gun on the ground, someone must have dropped it. He rushed over to it, picked it up, and fired the flare straight at the Taken crowd. As it killed most of the Taken leading the charge, there were still more of them from the back. The temporary light the flare was giving off repelled the Taken, giving time for Snappy to finish off Chernov.

Snappy held up his SIR and aimed for Chernov's back, then squeezed the trigger repeatedly. Round after round, they struck Chernov with brute force. The Taken leader had given Snappy his attention, now he charged after the smurfling with his ax held up high.

Shoot him in the shoulder!, screamed a voice in Snappy's head.

Snappy quickly recall that Chernov had a weak-spot on his shoulder, right around the left part of his collarbone. Having known him for a long time, he seen him winced everytime he got struck in that delicate area, even collapsed onto the ground if its strong enough. So Snappy aimed the rifle at Chernov's shoulder, and fired.

Upon impact, Chernov vaporized just like that. His outline fades as he burst into yellow sparkles, then vanished entirely. Snappy turned and saw the Taken also burst into static and disappear, all of the green smurf Taken were destroyed upon Chernov's death.

As Snappy regroups with his friends, he started to feel light-headed, the whole world started to blur. "Snappy," said Cherskey, "You're bleeding pretty badly."

Snappy looked down and saw a laceration in his side, he remembered Chernov had tried to get him with his machete, clearly he had succeeded. Blood had oozed all over Snappy's side, staining his right leg with blood all the way down to his foot. The heat of the moment prevented him from reacting to the pain, it began to burn in agony upon discovery.

He was too weak to scream, to react to the pain. Snappy collapsed onto his rear, then laid back onto the ground. "Snappy!" cried Sassette, "Get's some help! Somesmurf, get some help!"

All around them, the lights came back on, the green smurfs finally got the grid back on. Snappy turned and saw a manuscript page floating to the ground, right within his reach. He started crawling towards, and managed to grab it as Cherskey pulled him back. "Lets get him to a medical clinic!" cried Cherskey, "There's one not that far from here!"

Those were the last words Snappy heard for the night, he looses consciousness and blacks out, nothing more after that.

**TO BE CONTINUED...**

_Puppy looked for a way out of the forest, having been lost since the attack on the Smurf Village he couldn't figure out his way back. Awhile walking through the woods, he saw something up ahead, something in the human form. He rushed towards it, thinking it was a man, a wizard. To much of the dog's surprise, he was familiar, a thousand years since his birth made things clear that he had seen owners come and go. _

_But something was wrong, the wizard smelled wrong somehow. Puppy began to bark, then growled. Only to have a growl sounding monstrous in return when his previous owner held up an ax, terror pierced the dog's brain as the ax follows suit._


	19. Chapter 19

**Disclaimer: I do not own any characters that were created by someone else**

**Claimer: Go to my profile to view my characters**

Snappy struggled, he figured he was dead since everything was black to him. When he finally opened his eyes, he saw he was safe. He was back in the Command Center, laying on the cot Rick and Dashie sleep on. He stared at the ceiling and let the feeling sink in, he already had enough drama for one day.

Whoa, he thought to himself, What a night.

He took a look at the cot and stared at it for a brief moment, Snappy wondered if the cot had ever been washed. He placed his nose on it and get a good whiff of its odor, the cot smelled like dead rotting animals that had drowned in a vat of alcohol. If Snappy didn't feel ill before, he does now.

He tried to sit upright, he felt weak, like something had sucked out all of the energy right out of him. Snappy looked down at himself and realized most of his clothes were gone, all he was wearing was his red smurf boxers and a peculiar bandage that covered part of his belly. He recalled the laceration made by Chernov when he threw his machete at him, someone must have patched him up awhile he was out cold.

Snappy felt he had been split open and had his insides rearranged, then sown back together like a rag doll. What an unpleasant feeling, might as well get grind up into powder and be used as fertilizer. Yeah, that's a whole lot better than being cut open and disemboweled. He touched the bandaged with the tips of his fingers, the wound underneath sting like acid, Snappy withdrew his hand almost immediately.

Looking across the room, Snappy saw the front door was wide open, he could see it was day outside. Among the sound of wind and crude green smurf computers, he heard footsteps and voices outside the Command Center. He listened carefully in an effort to decipher the sound, what he was hearing was his friends voices outside the Command Center, they were coming back to check on him.

Snappy watched as his fellow smurflings walked in, seeing him made them smile, "Snappy!" cheered Sassette, "You're awake!"

"How are you feeling Snappy?" asked Nat.

"I feel drained," said Snappy, "What happened?"

"You nearly bled to death," said Cherskey, "We couldn't get any help among the confusion, so I had to take matters into our own hands."

"He stitched the cut closed himself," said Nelly, "I made sure that you were comfortable, and of course, under a lamp."

"Rick is washing your clothes at the moment," said Cherskey, "Washing blood off of clothing is nothing new to him, his fellow brothers always suffer injuries similar to what you had."

"I could have used a red shirt," said Snappy as he looked at Slouchy, "That way it would be less horrifying."

"Oh very funny," said Slouchy, "Might as well wear a pair of brown pants."

The Smurflings laughed out loud, Cherskey even slap Slouchy in the back for congratulation, "My mom loves that joke." he said.

Snappy suddenly remembered something: the manuscript page, "Hey guys," he said, "Where's the manuscript page I had before I passed out?"

"Its right next to you," said Cherskey, "W didn't get a chance to read it because we was busy fixing you up, literally. So I left it by your side when we were all done with you."

Snappy spot the manuscript page sitting next to the cot, it was folded, and surprisingly clean. He had expected that it would be stained with his own blood, Cherskey did a great job of taking good care of it as he did when taking care of him. Snappy picked up the manuscript page and unfolded it, then read it out loud:

_In order to set your smurfs free,_

_You need the witch's cabin key._

_Find the Lady of the Light gone mad with the night,_

_Find the Lady of the Light still raving in the night._

_That's how you reshape destiny._

"Its a poem," said Cherskey, "Poet Smurf might love it."

"Its not just a poem," said Snappy, "Its a hint, a message. Where's my backpack?"

"Right here." said Sassette.

Sassette handed Snappy his backpack and gave it to him, he opened it up and pulled out the "Children Of The Elder Smurfs" manuscript and began searching through it.

"What are you doing Snappy?" asked Nelly.

"There must be something in here saying more about the Lady of the Light," replied Snappy, "I know it."

He shifted through many of the pages, looking for one that talks about the Lady of the Light, maybe something similar. And then he found it:

_Rachael had been wondering how long she had to endure this torture, she could barely keep Baby Smurf and herself fed, get enough water to drink, keeping paste with the dark things she had to face every night. More lights lit up the outside than the inside of her shelter, powering them all was a burden. As she sat in the light, she thought about Chernov and her two smurflings. Rachael felt guilty of leaving them behind, instead of bringing Baby Smurf with her. It was Chernov who told her to do so, and now Chernov was gone. She knew she would never see him again._

_A tear trickle down her face as she stared at a picture of the children she bore, remembering how painful it was to bring them in the world. Awhile holding the picture in her hand, she cried. Rachael was tired, she wanted to give up. The only thing that kept her going was the hope to see her green smurflings again, she wanted to be with them before the Dark Presence finishes her off as well._

"Mama?" asked Cherskey, skeptical of what he heard.

"She must be the Lady of the Light," said Snappy, "Who else would it be?"

"He's right Cherskey," said Nelly, "It's gotta be mom."

"Well," said Cherskey, "Where could we find her?"

"Its gotta be somewhere near the Smurf Village," said Snappy, "Or at least somewhere that is safe."

"Safe?" Cherskey asked, "From what I'd just heard, she doesn't sound safe from her own emotions."

"She's always that sensitive." said Nelly.

"She'll feel better once we get you guys to her," said Snappy, "No questions asked."

Reassuring that was, Snappy wondered how he was going to fulfill that promise. Cherskey and Nelly were largely independent, they never depend on the Smurflings for anything, not even talking to them much. Now the twins and the Smurflings had lost everything and are now widely dependent on each other than ever before, Snappy wasn't sure if they see it that way, but he does.

At that moment, Rick came walking into the Command Center. In his hands was a neatly folded yellow shirt and white pants, Snappy realized it was his clothes immediately.

"Your awake," said Rick, "Good, I had just finished washing your clothing. It was easy getting the blood of of it, been doing it long before the Humanoid Wars."

"Your a pro at it, you did a great job." said Snappy as he unfolded his clothing and held it up for examination, sure enough there were no signs of any bloodstains nor fabric damage whatsoever.

"I do this kind of chore once a week," said Rick, "Half the time, the blood doesn't belong to the wearer."

Snappy was eager to put them on, his clothes smelled fresh and clean. He'd forgotten the last time he ever smelled clean laundry. Once dressed, he slowly got back onto his feet. "You still appear weak." said Sassette, noting how Snappy wobbles on his legs a little bit.

"Anemia," diagnosed Cherskey, "He lost so much blood last night that his body struggles to function properly."

"I have something that could help," said Rick, "Green smurf scientist had develop a type of gum for anemic smurfs, they enriched the gum with iron supplements."

"Let's get him that." said Nelly.

"Snappy," said Cherskey, "You must rest, you are in no shape to perform any task."

"Not here," crooned Snappy, "The cot smelled like it hadn't been washed in weeks."

"Dashie farts in it a lot," said Rick, "And occasionally spills her alcoholic beverage on it."

"Speaking of Dashie," said Slouchy, "Did you find her or any traces of her."

"Found no clues whatsoever," said Rick, "But that doesn't matter at the moment, I'll go get some of the gum right now."

"Get me somewhere quiet guys," said Snappy, "Somewhere that I could rid myself from noise."

"The library will do," said Cherskey, "The lounge chairs over there are very comfortable."

"Maybe they have a map over there," said Snappy, "It would help gladly if it can lower the search area for your mom."

"I never thought of that." said Nelly.

"Well," said Cherskey, "We gotta start somewhere, so why not?"

As Snappy heads over to the green smurf pharmacy for anemia gum, Snappy's friends helped him outside and into the smurfvee. From there, they drove across GSV 2 to GSV 3. This part of the colony contained the archives of what the green smurfs had learned in the past, also the great forms of green smurf literature were stored here. Since the Green Smurf Colony Library was the biggest building in GSV 3, the Smurflings had no trouble finding it.

They parked the car outside and helped Snappy out. Once he stepped out, he looked up and gazed at the library looming over him. It was made out of solid tetromino blocks and concrete, made in such a way that to Snappy, the Dark Presence would have a hard time getting in. The windows were hexagonal, with glass that appears impenetrable to homemade explosives. The front doors were solid steel and were wide open, Snappy could see it leads to regular wooden doors that were closed all the time.

It looked beautiful to him, he was eager to see the inside of the building, "You wanna go inside now Snappy?" asked Nat, breaking Snappy's mode of concentration.

"Yes, of course." said Snappy.

The Smurflings led Snappy inside and he got a first look at the interior, he saw that it was massive, the height from floor to ceiling was great. There were rows of many tall shelves, filled to the brim with numerous books. Several chairs and table were properly aligned in the most convenient places as possible, including the plush chairs and couches Cherskey mentioned about.

Snappy made his way to the plush chairs and sat down awhile everyone followed behind, "Well," said Sassette, "What do you think?"

"This is perfect," said Snappy, "I think I'll manage well here."

**TO BE CONTINUED...**

_Smurfette wondered around the village, looking for any sign of her friends. She had heard a noise, and screams, it made her heart sink into her stomach like a mole who refused to come out of its hole. From the distance, Smurfette can see Chernov's house with lights pouring through the windows. She had checked most of the mushroom homes but not Chernov's, the lights inside felt promising to her._

_Without a second thought, Smurfette made her way to there. But just before she was able to reach it, she felt the suddenly got colder, followed by an awful smell that was too horrid to compensate. Then a sharp pain shot her in the back and feeling to her legs were lost, she didn't have the chance to scream as the whole world closed in on her._


	20. Chapter 20

**Disclaimer: I do not own any characters that were created by someone else**

**Claimer: Go to my profile to view my characters**

At first, the Smurfling left him alone for the time being and head off to get breakfast. Snappy took comfort at the library by reading several books, many of which were military fiction and humor. Awhile he was reading, Rick came by and gave him breakfast and the gum he promised. Snappy devoured the donut bun egg sandwich and chocolate milk with ravishment, clearly he was really hungry.

Once finished with breakfast, he picked up the iron supplement gum and examined it. It had a sickly gray color to it, the gum was shaped like a cube with the "Fe" symbol stamped on each side. Snappy placed it in his mouth and began chewing it, it tasted metallic-like, very strong in which made Snappy's tongue feel rough. In other words, it tasted horrible. Despite the flavor, Snappy kept right on chewing it as he resumes reading.

Being in a quiet place in all, does not leave snappy alone from anyone. Having heard of his heroic act last night, many green smurfs, mostly female, came by to see him. It was great talking to them, especially since they were friendly. He liked how the guys treated him as another buddy and liked how the smurfettes treat him as their own child. On occasion, green smurflings come by to see him, they all act just like the adults despite their age.

Weird, he thought, More attention than I've ever got at the Smurf Village.

Hours past before the Smurflings returned to Snappy, by the time they came back hours later they saw a pile of books Snappy had either read or skimmed through collecting beside him, "Hey Snappy," said Sassette, "We were thinking of you."

"I was thinking of you guys too." said Snappy.

"I see you were busy," said Cherskey as he gaze at the pile of books Snappy had piled up, "Holy sh*t, you've been doing your homework."

"Yup," said Snappy, "Oh um, Cherskey? Nelly? I'm sorry about your dad in all from what happened last night, I really am."

"Its okay Snappy," said Nelly, trying her best not to cry, "Oh, this is going to be hard."

"He was already long gone to begin with," said Cherskey, "He's doomed from the start, I just don't care anymore. Now I just wanna find mama, dead or alive, hopefully alive."

"What about the map you talked about?" asked Nelly, "Did you find one?"

"I haven't seen any maps whatsoever," said Snappy, "Just books, and more books."

"They're probably kepts in the basement," said Cherskey, "In filing cabinets arranged just like the books in the same ordering system, there could be some maps down there."

"I'll go get it," said Nelly, "I know what to look for."

Nelly ran off to the far edge of the library and head through one of the doors, vanishing out of sight of the Smurflings. No one said anything as they wait, Snappy considered falling asleep and dozed off a little. When Nelly returned, he quickly woke up as he found himself being handed the map she went to fetch.

Without saying anything, Snappy unfolded it and examined the map, its just what he was looking for, "Thank you Nelly," he said, "This is just what we need."

"Your welcome." said Nelly.

Snappy got up and head over to a nearby table where he spread out the map on its surface. The Smurflings could see the Smurf Village and the Green Smurf Colony marked out on the map, along with many trails, landmarks, and borders. Snappy realized the map was calibrated to the metric system, he and his friends could not make sense of the measurements. Luckily, Cherskey and Nelly helped translate the measurements for them.

"10 kilometers is 6 miles in equivalence." says Cherskey as he pointed out the distance between the village and the colony.

"And 1 meter is similar to one yard," added Nelly, "A meter is 3 inches more than a yard."

"This map also shows terrain," noted Nat, "Which terrain will you hide in when chased by the Dark Presence?"

"Me and Nelly crawled up a tree," said Cherskey, "We've rigged it so it can be safe."

Snappy pointed out a ruined tower near the Smurf Village, "What about here?" he asked.

"Well," said Cherskey, "The manuscript page said that mama took shelter in a cramped area, where would that be?"

"Here," said Sassette as she pointed out a hilly region near the coast, "There's a lighthouse here."

"A human-made lighthouse." said Cherskey.

"Its abandoned," said Nelly, "Maybe she's near here."

"You know what," said Snappy, "Let's go check it out, let's get the smurfvee and head right on over there."

"You sure that's a good idea in your current condition?" asked Cherskey.

"I can take care of myself," said Snappy, "I'm not quitting the game that easy."

"Nice to hear," said Nelly, "Let's go find mama!"

With a plan in mind, the Smurflings head to their smurfvee and got in. "You should drive Cherskey," said Snappy as he hopped into the front passenger seat, "I've operated enough machinery for one day."

"Okay Snappy," said Cherskey, "Smart move on your part."

Smart move indeed, Snappy could barely lift his arms anymore. He conserves his energy as Cherskey got behind the wheel and started up the smrufvee, they soon drove off down the main road and left the colony once more. Using the map, Snappy guided Cherskey to where he should go and where to turn. Awhile on the road, the radio crackled to life.

"To anyone listening," said a familiar voice on the radio, "Please respond."

That voice, it was Rachael. She was calling for help, a surprise in which filled the hearts of the Smurflings with hope. Cherskey grabbed the microphone and raised it to his mouth, "Copy." he said, "Cherskey Reznov here, what's your report? Over."

"Cherskey?" asked Rachael, her voice sounded surprise, "Cherskey, is that you!"

"10-4 Mama." said Cherskey.

Nelly reached up from the back and grabbed the microphone from Cherskey's hand, "Mama!" she screamed into it, "We're coming to find you, where's your location! Over!"

"I'm near an abandoned human lighthouse," said Rachael, "Just west of the Smurf Village. It's good to hear your voices, I missed you guys. I thought I was all alone."

Cherskey yanked the microphone out of Nelly's hand and raised it back to his mouth, "You're not alone Ma," said Cherskey, "We're coming to get you, just sit tight."

"I have Baby Smurf here," said Rachael, "Oh... I'm sorry for leaving you, Chernov instructed me to rescue Baby Smurf when the Smurf Village was attacked, I did not want to argue with him. Where is he anyway?"

"Sorry Ma," said Cherskey, "Dad's dead, the Dark Presence had possessed him and we're forced to put him down. We nearly lost a friend during the process."

"Is the other Smurflings with you?" asked Rachael.

"Yes."

"Oh god, it's just what it said on the manuscript page!"

"What! Repeat, over!"

"I said, it's just what it said on that manuscript page I found!"

Snappy grabbed the microphone from Cherskey and spoke into it, "You've been finding manuscript pages, Rachael? Over."

"Snappy?" she said, "Yes, I have been finding manuscript page. I recognized the handwriting, it's Chernov. This doesn't make any sense, why would Chernov have himself killed in the manuscript he wrote?"

"Maybe he didn't wrote it." said Snappy.

"Oh no, oh no no no no no! This is not good! Repeat, this is not good!"

Cherskey grabbed the microphone from Snappy and resumes talking into it, "We're coming to get you Mama!" he blurted out, "Just sit tight, we'll rendezvous with you soon!"

"Oh thank you!" she cried, "I'm hungry, I'm thirsty, and I'm tired! I could barely keep my overalls on, I could barely feed Baby Smurf..."

The Smurflings listened when they heard her began crying, the sound made Nelly and Sassette upset. A few seconds past before Rachael got back on the radio, "Oh, you're not hearing this!" she sobbed, "Over and out!"

The transmission was cut off and Cherskey hanged the microphone back onto the hook, "Hang on Mama!" he cried, "I'm coming!"

The Smurflings drove through the forest, not stopping for anything. Snappy thought about what to do once the nightmare was over, he thought about how to defeat he Dark Presence, thinking of how to drive it back to where it came. It took him a moment to realize that he and the Smurflings are fighting a darkness that threatens to take over the smurfs and possibly the entire region, maybe even the whole world for all he know, and they are fighting back with the forces of light.

The Light Presence in his dreams, when will it come and save what's left. Its something to think about later, right now they must pick up Rachael and Baby Smurf then bring them back to the colony. He looked out the window and saw a rotting human corpse as they past by, Snappy recognized it as Johan. "Looks like the smurfs aren't alone." he contemplated.

"What?" asked Cherskey.

"Did you see the human body as we past by it?" asked Snappy.

"A body?" asked Nat.

"Yeah," said Cherskey, "I did see the body. I'm not stopping to investigate it though, nor am I interested in rotting corpses at the moment."

As they continued down the trail, they saw the corpse of a dog past by. Snappy easily identified the dog as Puppy, he caught a glimpse of the maggots pouring out of the gash in the dog's skull. It was more sickening than Johan's body, since it was covered in flies nearly beyond recognition. He wondered what had done this, both bodies appeared to be foul play. Snappy began to think that the Dark Presence was now moving on from smurfs to other creatures, the thought alone made him shiver to the core.

Night was falling fast, and they had a few more meters to go. Cherskey turned on the head and roof lights, illuminating the road before them. "We're coming Mama," he whispers under his breath, "We're coming for you."

He made a turn and managed to see light up ahead just as the sun had set, as he drove towards it the Smurflings felt the ground shake and the roar of the Dark Presence echoing past the trees. "Oh this is not good," said Cherskey, "Is the Dark Presence is coming after Mama?"

"Don't let down now," said Snappy, "We're almost there."

When the Smurflings reached the light, they managed to see a small shed in the middle of a clearing. There were LED lights everywhere, linked together in a parallel circuit, wires buried to prevent damage. The wooden shack appeared in a sorry shape, despite being lit brighter than a fireworks display. Snappy couldn't imagine taking shelter in such a tiny thing for days, as the Smurflings parked the smurfvee all the lights went out.

Shadows rose up and attacked the small shed, the Smurflings watched in horror as the Dark Presence pulled Rachael out of her shelter before tossing aside Baby Smurf. He flew into the air and landed just a couple meters away as the green smurfette protecting him was dragged away into the night, the Smurflings quickly got out and drawn their flashlights and guns.

"Mama!" cried Cherskey.

They could hear Rachael's screams fading away, but Baby Smurf's screams were clear to hear. Sassette rushed over to Baby Smurf and picked him up, the infant appeared weak, covered in grime with thin cheek bones. Baby Smurf was in a sorry state, Sassette tried her best to calm him down as she cradled him in her arms. "We gotta find Mama!" cried Cherskey, now sounding desperate.

"Mama!" cried Nelly.

"Guys!" cried Snappy, "Wait!"

The twins ran towards the direction where Rachael was taken as the Smurflings does their best to keep up. They ran through trees and shrubs, desperate in locating Rachael. Snappy's anemia was slowing him down, yet he managed to keep up with little strength he had left. When they broke through the vegetation, they saw a light down at the bottom of a hill. It was an overhead lamp, connected to a generator in which the Smurflings can hear running. Beyond that was the abandoned lighthouse Rachael had described, it was just a short distance away.

Underneath the glow of the overhead lamp, the Smurflings could see Rachael underneath. She was laying on her back, with arms spread out. Blood was starting to pour onto the ground, the Smurflings waste no time getting to her. "Mama!" cried Cherskey.

"Help!" cried Rachael, "I'm right here!"

They heard Rachael cough, by the time they got near here they saw the damaged close hand. She appeared to have lost weight, but she was still fat. Her hair was a mess as her green overalls were covered in dirt and her own blood, Rachael was wheezing heavily as she coughed out blood. Whatever she had endured was coming to an end, Snappy knows it.

"Mama!" cried Cherskey and Nelly.

"Babies?" she asked as Cherskey and Nelly rushed over to her.

They tried to pull her up, but she screamed in pain. In panic, they let go and took a step back. "We'll get you help Mama," said Cherskey wildly, "We'll get you home, we'll take care of you."

"Cherskey," she said as she held his hand, "I can't feel my legs, my back hurts so much more than my chest and belly. I'm screwed."

"Mama," said Nelly, "Please stay with us, don't leave us again!"

Snappy noticed blood was starting to pool around her, she didn't have much time left. He approached and took a deep breath as the rest of his friends watch, "Rachael," he asked, "Do you have the pages?"

"It didn't get the pages," said Rachael, "I hid them... at the lighthouse, behind the life-belt."

Rachael grabbed Snappy by the collar of his shirt and pulled him closer to her, "It knows," she warned, "It won't let you get a hold of them."

"Don't leave us Mama." said Cherskey.

"I'm not going anywhere Cherskey," said Rachael as she lets go of Snappy, "I'll be right here where you left me, just go find the pages, then get me back to the colony."

She rest her head back onto the ground and looked straight up at the light illuminating her, "I see the light," she said, "I think it's one watt."

The twins chuckled and so does Rachael, soon she closed her eyes and goes limp. She didn't stop breathing, she just lost consciousness. Cherskey and Nelly stopped laughing and started crying, they held each other dearly for a moment. "Let's finish this," said Cherskey, "I'm done with darkness. When I get back to the colony, I'm going to crawl inside of a tanning booth, turn it to supernova, and I'm going to live in it."

"Agreed," said Nelly, "I'll join you."

Oh this is going to be interesting, thought Snappy.

The Smurflings left Rachael to die in peace as they walked towards the lighthouse. The lighthouse was huge, it was covered in green moss and was deteriorating at a rapid pace. Rachael chose one hell of a spot to hide the manuscript pages in, in other circumstances it would even be funny. But it was appropriate in all cases, a lighthouse will always show the way.

The Smurflings approached the life-belt that was displayed in the front, Snappy walked around and searched for the pages. Sure enough, he found the stack in question. He grabbed them without hesitation and walked back to his fellow smurflings, Sassette clutched Baby Smurf in her arms as Cherskey and Nelly held each others hands as Snappy read the first page out loud:

_Before the Smurflings, the darkness that Gargamel had unleashed came calling. It formed itself into a spiraling vortex, sucking everything that's not bolted down up into the air, then tossed them aside like toys. There was no where to run, and it seems like the end._

Right after Snappy finished, the shadows began to move as the winds began to blow. The light protecting Rachael popped before a huge tornado spawned right between her and the Smurflings. It grew to an enormous size and, just what the page described, sucked up random junk into the air and tossed them aside. The Smurflings felt all the color on their faces drained from their feet, realizing that this was an ambush.

Snappy tucked the pages into his backpack before zipping it up and pull it on, the Smurflings watched as the Dark Presence moves in and blocks the stars and moon. Everything became dark, so dark that the light in their flashlights were consumed. The Smurflings walked backwards in an effort to get away, just before the darkness engulfed them whole, and everything became black.

**THE END!**


End file.
